Differential Coefficient: The Second Flock
by Royal Lady
Summary: What Maximum doesn't know might just save her life. Aelita Batchelder is building a second flock of her own, just like her dear older brother. Join Griffin, Eila, Kichiro, Fleur, Rhaksha, Whisper, Mist and Bobby on the run and on the wing.
1. Chapter 1

"Pffth..." the albino muttered, elevating himself into a semi-upright position with one arm. He grabbed the other arm and snapped the bone back into place with a loud crack and another loud hiss. Stupid Erasers. So there. He was stuck in the middle of the forest with a broken arm, one hell of a black eye and what was probably a bullet stuck in his leg.

"Griffin, look at yourself. Totally messed up," he muttered to himself, grabbing a suitable stick and ripping a couple more fabric strips off the bottom of his hospital gown. He stared to tie a rough splint around his arm.

"Want some help with that?" a voice called rom behind, and above by the sounds of it.

Griffin facepalmed. "Can't do a thing right today, can I?"

**I sighed and rubbed my eyes tiredly with the back of one hand. God, I had to do something. I knew that the Director was up to something, and I couldn't just let the world burn while I sat within the Shcool's walls with materials at my disposal.**

**I leaned forward and opened a new file, setting my fingers to the keys.**

_**Hi, guys. I need you, yes you, to find mutants for Griffin's flock. I'm counting on you guys, okay? I don't care what you have to do, pull up some research files, break into Itex, just do it. Send me the specifics in this application form and I'll arrange how they'll meet up. The files will find their way back to me.**_

_**This is really important. Itex has been trying to prevent a new flock from coming together since the first Flock was deemed a viable success. They're what's called the Differential Coefficient: if they meet up with the original flock, they could make the difference between saving the world and having a huge ball of ash underneath our feet.**_

_**The formation of the new flock will be just as the old flock is formed: three boys and three girls. I've hand picked Experiment 1879Xfd, Griffin, as its leader. I also need as much information as I can on Itex agents and experiments that could possibly jeopardise the safety of both flocks.**_

_**Help me out. I don't care whether you're ex-Itex, ex-School, civilian or a current whitecoat. The fate of the world is resting on this.**_

_**Signed ~ The Angel to the Left of God**_

**I encrypted the file and exported it, planting the files across the internet and embedding them with ghost virus codes. That way, Itex would be blissfully unaware of the seed of a plan that I was beginning to hatch. I hit enter.**

**One step closer to saving the world.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Griffin**

"You look like crap, frankly," the voice said again, this time above my head. "So, kid, how did you manage to get so chewed up?"

I froze. I was in no position to run or fight. I hadn't eaten in two days, and even if this was a whitecoat... I refused to think about it. I've escaped three times. I am not going back there again.

I tried to get up, but my leg collapsed and I landed hard on my broken arm, bringing out an involuntary cry. The voice snickered, and blur passed through the trees. My head whipped around to follow it. It was unnaturally fast, too fast to be a human.

Another mutant. I really can't do anything right today, can I?

It flew through the air and landed - guess where - on me. Ow. Major ow. Cool metal pressed into my neck as the blur (actually what appeared to be a girl, my age), snarled in my face.

"Or maybe you're not such an innocent little kid. So tell me, are you an Obliterator, huh?" she hissed. I blinked.

"Is that meant to be funny?" I asked. No, serious, I couldn't resist. This girl, she was so uptight I just _had_ to poke fun at her.

She growled even more.

"So, I'm guessing you're a mutant," I continued conversationally, trying to buy time. The girl leaned back, face impassive. Everything hurt like hell

"No, no, don't worry, I'm not about to run and scream. In fact, I'm a part of the dandy little establishment you've got there," I said, waving my good arm. I leaned up a bit extended one of my wings slightly, revealing some of their majestic, black-tipped-white glory.

"Oh. Well that changes things," she breathed. She sat there for a couple of seconds, almost squishing me in the process. She nearly impaled me with her knife!

"Could you get off, please? I'm sort of dying under here," I said. The girl (what's her name again?) got off and took her knife with her, incidentally stepping on my bullet wound in the process. Which started bleeding again.

"Let's start that again. Hi. My name is Griffin. I'm sixteen, albino from Eastern Europe and I'm a avian-human hybrid," I introduced, sticking my good hand out for her to shake. Was it just me, or was she leaning sideways?

"Hi. My name is Eila, pronounced I-la, I'm sixteen from Nicaragua and I'm an avian-human hybrid too," the girl said, shaking my hand.

"Good. Well," I started, but Eila was already splinting my arm. I sat up and stuck my finger into the messy, crusted up hole where one of the human-lupines shot me. Doing that brought up an new wave of pain, and digging around for the little lump of metal made me even dizzier. I found it, grabbed the bullet between my finger and thumb, and wiggled it out.

It came free with a squelch and blood started to trickle out more quickly.

Oh, crap.


	3. Chapter 3

"**Alright, Mist, go," I said. Mist nodded, gave me the thumbs up and lay back. Slowly, from the tips of her toes up, she relaxed. The rise and fall of her chest slowed until it came to an eventual stop. I hefted Mist's still form into a body bag, and loaded that onto a trolley. Adjusting my glasses, I pushed open the double doors and wheeled the trolley carefully down the corridor. Dr Velasquez, one of the more loyal School scientists, eyed me suspiciously. **

**His greying moustache bristled. Jorge Velasquez has always hated me. Maybe it's because I'm a pretty brunette twenty-something year old with a PhD from Harvard. Or maybe it's the fact that I did what he couldn't in his twenty year career: make a successful experiment that lasted more than a couple of months.**

"**What's that?" he asked.**

"**Nothing. Dead experiment," I said, keeping my face carefully blank. Velasquez unzipped the body bag and revealed Mist's face. He lifted one of her pale eyelids and examined her blue-grey eye for motion. Lifting her blue tipped blond hair, he felt her pulse. Satisfied that she was really 'dead', he zipped the bag back up and stalked off. Smiling slightly, I wheeled the trolled into one of the storage rooms and unzipped the body bag. Oh, Velasquez. One can never know of all a girl's mutations.**

"**C'mon, Mist," I whispered, and Mist got up from her 'corpse' pose.**

"**Almost got caught, there," she said, smiling at me weakly. I folded the body bag up purposefully and stuffed it back into a plastic bag. I looked through the windows in the doors. No other whitecoats in the corridor. Mist clenched her fists and screwed up her face. A loud boom, like thunder and lightning, echoed outside the facility. A couple of seconds later, the alarm went off.**

"**Alert! Alert! Substantial external structural damage! External structural damage!" a tinny voice proclaimed.**

**I took the fourteen year old's hand, hustled her down the corridor and up the stairs to the dorms. I unlocked my room with the card key and locked it again from the inside. **

"**Wow," Mist said, pointing at my wall. It was plastered with posters of Epica, Delain, Nightwish, After Forever, and Within Temptation. There was a particularly large framed Nightwish poster above my narrow bed, and I took that down to reveal a small-ish window, just big enough for Mist to escape from. **

"**There's a pack under the bed, I scrounged up some supplies from the kitchens. It's not much, but it should keep you going for a week if you're careful," I said, rummaging under the bed for the pack. I handed it to Mist and opened the window. The hinges swung open with a horrendous screech, getting stuck halfway. I pounded the glass until the opening was big enough for Mist to wiggle through. I handed her a cardboard folder of printed sheets, and pressed a memory stick into her hand.**

"**Here. Get this to Griffin as fast as you can, and for God's sake, don't lose it!" I whisper-yelled, urging Mist through the window. She launched herself into the sky, blue-grey wings unfurling and catching the air. She turned to me and waved, smiling widely.**

"**Thank you, Aelita!" she cried, before the wind picked up and carried her over the horizon.**

"Griffin, wake up. Wake up, Griffin, I'm not dragging your fat arse around the forest, y'know," Eila said, shaking me awake. Eila brushed her dark brown hair out of her face with a tanned, scarred hand and squinted at me with her impossibly suspicious brown doe eyes.

"Jeez, Eila, can't be a bit more gentle?" I snapped. It came out more like a strangled hedgehog trying to sing Ave Maria while half-stuck in a drainpipe.

"Uh, what?" she asked flatly, one eyebrow raised. She unscrewed the top of a water bottle and passed it to me. I drained the contents in under a minute, sloshing it down my front, on my face and somewhat successfully into my mouth. Meanwhile, Eila watched with a vaguely unimpressed expression.

"Wow." The ways he said it made me feel like I was a naughty puppy who'd done his thing on the kitchen floor. So, in response, I gave her a dirty look.

Eila chuckled and pulled me up off the floor.

"You good to go?" she asked me. I tested my leg out. It seemed to be alright. I nodded at her.

"Accelerated healing sure is handy," I muttered. Eila ignored me.

"Maybe I should go to Walmart. Get you a couple of sets of clothes. Can't have you walking around in a hospital gown," Eila said, apparently thinking to herself.

First she nearly kills me. Next she takes care of me. Then she ignores me. And now she's talking to herself.

Women are confusing.

**I clicked through the files that various persons had sent me of the mutants they knew of that could be of help in the new flock. So far, all the female places had been filled. The first, and second in command, would be Eila, a sixteen year old avian. The next mutant would be Mist, a fourteen year old vulpes-avian. The most recent file I'd received was for a girl called Cadisha Rhaksha, a fifteen year old serpentes-avian hybrid. And the only male was Griffin, the sixteen year old avian.**

**I sighed. This was harder than it looked. **


	4. Chapter 4

**Eila**

I brushed down my unremarkable windbreaker and walked into Walmart as unobtrusively as I could. That is, ignoring the fact that I was a five foot seven Nicaraguan bird-mutant with what appeared to be a smear of blood on my face. Well. Life can't always be perfect.

I felt around in the back pocket of my cargo pants for the meagre remains of the money I'd stolen two, three weeks ago. There were three notes left and a couple of coins. Round about twenty bucks in total. There was no way that'd buy Griffin a windbreaker and two sets of clothes, with money left over for a decent meal.

I wiped my sleeve across my face as I quickly headed to the guys' section. I immediately went to the most promising rack, grabbing two t-shirts, two pairs of pants, a belt and a windbreaker. I found a pair of boots in about the right size, and grabbed a couple of pairs of socks and some boxers.

I glanced out the corner of my eye, spotting three security cameras. I carefully turned so that my body blocked the view of all the cameras as I stuffed the goods into my backpack.

"Hey you, stop!" That was a shop assistant, chasing after a tall, skinny teenager. The teenager was clutching a bundle of clothes and food items as well as having stuff streaming from her bulging backpack. Looks like I'm not the only one with limited funds.

She looked back, cursed, and ran faster. A rent-a-cop skidded out in front of her, followed by a pack of red-faced employees. She dodged. One particularly persistent cop grabbed his billy club and smashed into her side with it. She cried out and staggered to the side, just enough so she overbalanced and all the stuff she was filching spilled out across the floor.

"Oh, no," she said. "You didn't."

She snarled and- get this- extended her _wings_. Bird wings, about fourteen feet across in total and coloured like a tropical parrot's. A wind stirred up, whipping her waist-length black hair around, into her mid-green eyes and tanned face. She slammed her fist into the floor and a crevice split the linoleum tile. The employees yelled and pointed at the girl, dodging the cracks racing across the floor.

_Shoot. This hot-tempered mutant is going to get herself killed!_

I jumped across the widening crevasse and grabbed the girl by the arm. She was shorter than me, about five four, tanned, with a swirly birthmark on the back of her hand. I dragged her with me and swung my backpack on. I crashed through the fire escape, running up the stairs so I could take off with this girl.

"Let go of me!" she cried, thrashing. I hissed at her.

"I don't think so," I muttered. "If you don't want to be caught by the police and be gift-wrapped and delivered to Itex then run with me, okay!"

That shut her up.

We crashed into the open as the alarms in the store below wailed. I unfurled my own wings and ran off the side of the building, followed by the hot-tempered mutant girl.

**Mist**

Something collided with my back as I was in the air. I whipped around. Could the School be tracking me? I can't go back there, not after Aelita let me out again.

The projectile mumbled, "Oof!"

It rubbed its fluffy strawberry-blond head, and I saw that it was another birdkid with startling green eyes. He looked to be no more than about nine years old, and he looked at me with huge eyes.

"Wo-ah," he said, looking at me with this sort of spaced-out expression.

"Kid? Hello?" I asked, waving my hand in front of his face. The kid shook his head and looked at me.

"Ooh. Another birdkid?"

"Yeah!" I smiled. "I'm Mist!"

The kid smiled at me. "I'm Bobby!"

Yeah. He did look like a Bobby.

"Are you looking for someone?" Bobby asked me, this contemplative expression dawning in his face. I nodded.

"Do you know of a mutant named Griffin?"

**Kichiro**

Th Eraser's fist slammed into my face and sent me crashing into the wall. My vision flashed and I slid to the ground.

"Heh, you were always the one gone wrong," the Eraser sneered. I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth, picking up another streak of blood. I coughed. More of the red substance bubbled out from between my lips. I pushed off the ground, but my arms gave out and a stab of pain lanced through my ribs.

The Eraser laughed and spat on me. Jagged claws erupted from his fingertips and the Eraser examined the best angle from which to strike me at. He grinned, pulling back his gleaming pink gums over grotesquely protruding canines. He lifted his claws to strike.

A hand grabbed his shoulder, and with a fizzing noise, the Eraser seemed to dissolve. He froze,a terrified expression on his face. Then he let out one long, agonised howl. His face crumbled into nothing as his atoms dissipated into the atmosphere.

Oh, God. An Obliterator. Obliterators had the power to destroy objects, people, with a single touch and in the most painful way imaginable.

The Obliterator leaned over me, a figure of shadow lit from behind by the fluorescent strip lights above the sand-floored arena.

The figure chuckled darkly and waved over a team of whitecoats.

"Make sure this one doesn't die. The Director told me that I won't get another replacement body if this one kicks the bucket," the figure drawled. As whitecoats lifted me none too gently onto a gurney, I caught a better look at the Obliterator.

The shaggy blue-black hair, the pointed canines, wiry build. The strip of fur covering their shoulder blades and running down their spine.

It was me. Another me. The original copy.

Tred.


	5. Chapter 5

**Griffin**

"Eila. I wasn't aware they sold bird mutants at Walmart," I said flatly, struggling to keep the shock off my face. Trailing behind Eila was _another _bird-girl. She was way shorter than both Eila and I, at five foot four. However, what she lacked in height she made up for in looks. Insert dopey grin here.

Don't look at me like that. I'm a hormonal sixteen year old mutant bird-boy.

"Yep. I figured you'd like the short and feisty type better than the lanky, lethargic kind of mutant," Eila snorted.

"You did not just call me short!" the other girl gasped, scandalised. She growled at Eila, "I had it down, there! You didn't have to drag me out into the middle of the forest! Jeez!"

"Nice to meet you too," Eila replied tonelessly. The girl blinked.

"Al-right, then, I'm Griffin," I introduced, breaking in and taking their attention off the conflict.

"Eh...I'm Rhaksha," she said. "When did you get out?"

"Two days ago!" I grinned. Her mouth twisted.

"If it helps, I've been out for six years," Eila supplied. Rhaksha nodded at her.

"I've been out three years," she said, pressing her lips into a tight, thin line. My stomach grumbled, and her eyebrows shot up.

Eila chuckled. "Here," she said, handing me a bundle of clothes. "Change and we'll go to Mickey D's."

I ducked behind a tree and made myself decent.

"Yoohoo," Rhaksha called, "Done yet?"

Over the next two weeks, Eila, Rhaksha and I flew from California, through Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Indiana and West Viriginia to arrive in New York. We stole, scavenged and Dumpster-dived our way across the good ol' US of A. Rhaksha's sass and witty style became a regular addition in our flock lineup, while Eila was the strong/quiet type. I fell back into the easy-going leaderish role.

Mist and Bobby bumped into us at the dumpster behind a certain IHOP in New York. Eila, being the suspicious mutant that she is, grabbed both of them by the arms and brought them to me. Unofficial leader status. Yay.

"Are you Griffin?" she asked me, a sort of urgency in her voice. I nodded slowly.

"I'm Mist," she said, waving her fluffy pearl-grey tail. "I have something that you might need."

Mist dug in her backpack for something, bony elbows flying. She grinned and fished out a battered cardboard file cover thingy, and a memory stick.

"These are from Aelita Batchelder," she said.

Meanwhile, Bobby was spacing out on Rhaksha. She huffed impatiently and growled.

"Rhaksha, no offense, but you're terrible with kids," I called at her, grinning. Rhaksha growled and waved her fist at me. Eila snorted. I shoved the goods in my backpack and fished a couple more boxes of pancakes out of the dumpster.

"Ooh, maple syrup! Jackpot!" Mist called, fishing out a couple of plastic packets of syrup. I gave her the thumbs up.

"Up and away, guys!" We all ran up the back of the alley, lifting off smoothly.

Bobby was the baby of the family, but he was unexpectedly deep and space-y. He had the ability to see into peoples' pasts. Mist was fourteen, and was part dove, part fox. She could retract her tail and ears, stop her heartbeat for an extended period of time, and the weather changed with her mood. The rest of us always tried to keep her happy so we didn't get stormed out of the sky. Mist cried more than the rest of us, but smiled just as easily.

Eila had her super speed and Nicaraguan goregeousness, and Rhaksha couple control the wind and the earth, but only for a little while. I had accelerated healing and really freaking awesome stamina, man. Serious. I could be running and running and running for hours on end.

We touched down near the Pennsylvanian border, and made camp for the night. Eila got the fire going while Rhaksha did the food.

I flipped open the cardboard file folder thing-a-ma-jig. Rhaksha and Eila leaned over my shoulders and Bobby blinked at the page, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Mist looked at me expectantly, with eyebrows raised, struggling to keep her borrowed pants up. We hadn't had time to hit a Walmart yet, so Bobby and Mist were managing with Eila and Rhaksha's clothes.

"There are files on other mutants. The first five are of us, and the rest are of other mutants. Then there's this whole wad of other stuff in the back," I said, flicking through the pieces of paper.

"Flip back," Rhaksha ordered.

"Hey, am I the leader or are you?" I snapped. Rhaksha flicked my ear.

"Poo-face," I muttered.

"Butt-head," Rhaksha muttered.

The files on the mutants had little annotations in sparkly purple pen. They provided additional information on the mutants, like their personalities, what'd happened to the them in the School. Rhaksha gasped.

There seemed to be two files on the same person. Both were Asian boys who looked to be around me and Eila's age, with thick blue-black hair and decidedly wolfy looking canines. The first file was marked 'Tred – Original copy. BEWARE!' Tred was apparently a failed Eraser, but had allied himself to the School. The other file was marked, 'Kichiro – Second copy. Currently at Pennsylvania facility.'

_Wait. Second copy?_

A faint alarm noise blared in the distance, and a red pinprick of light lit up in the quiet night. Something went off with a boom and I picked out a stampede of figures running over another group of figures who seemed to be trying to stop the stampeded. Then, get this – a couple of the little stampeders jumped into the sky and flew away from the red pinprick.

It's another jolly mutant break-out, folks. Let's give it up for them.

**Kichiro**

Something ripped out the IV in the back of my hand and I winced. A hand shook my shoulder and someone else whispered to the figure above me. Another voice came from across the room.

"Leave it, Vi," a girl hissed. Vi looked at the other girl.

"Alex, I can't just leave him here," Vi pleaded. "Please, Alex!"

"Violet, Alex, Bea and Parker say that you have ten minutes to get out before the whole place goes up in smoke," three voices chorused at once. "Wait, who's that?"

One of the three voices piped up, "I remember, it's Tred's second copy. I think he's one of the good guys."

"Got that right, kid," I mumbled, trying to sit up. I was sore all over but it looked like the whitecoats patched me up. The five figures froze and kept their sights trained on me. The youngest three looked roughly the same, with the same face shape, nose and eyes. One of the two girls had auburn hair, while the other girl had darker red hair. The boy had dark brown hair. Violet had her eggplant purple wings half untucked on her back, while Alex twiddled her fingers, pushing back dirty blonde hair from a sharply angled face.

"Oh, good. You finally got up. I thought I might've had to get Alex to drag you," Violet said to me, looking up from behind an overgrown fringe. "Come on!"

The triplets and Alex ran out of the room as alarms blared. Violet grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me into the white corridor. The tinny announcement voice screeched.

"Structural damage to laboratory areas! Structural damage to mutant containment areas!"

"Go, go, go!" someone roared. It was a tall mutant girl with brilliant blue eyes and black hair in two French plaits. A boy with auburn hair and grey eyes followed her, herding this huge stampede of mutants to the main exit doors. A human barrier of whitecoats milled in the entrance way, trying to stop the mutants from escaping. The escapees simply kept going and plowed through the scientists.

I simply went with the flow and followed the rest of the mutants into the dark, cool night.

**I read the memo that Velasquez had forwarded to the rest of us scientists.**

**PENNSYLVANIA FACILITY COMPROMISED. ALL RECOMBINANTS ESCAPED. RETRIEVAL TEAMS DISPATCHED. DELAYS EXPECTED DUE TO UNFORSEEN MUTATIONS.**

**I smiled. Score one for mutants and Aeli Batchelder.  
**


	6. Chapter 6

**Griffin**

"Put the fire out," I said, closing the folder with a snap. "We're going over to see what's going on."

Rhaksha kicked up some dirt into the fire and grabbed her backpack. Mist tossed me my backpack and hiked up her pants. Bobby rose into the sky. Eila made sure the fire was fully put out. Rhaksha stuck her tongue out, offended by Eila's distrust in her handiwork.

"Move out!" I said, taking a running start and launching myself into the sky. The flock followed and we double timed it to the spectacular mutants-running-over-whitecoats-parade.

There were a couple of bat-children, and some dragonfly hybrids. The avians consisted of a girl and boy that looked older than us, a smaller girl with dirty blond hair, triplets and a purple winged girl in dire need of a haircut.

"Violet!" Bobby cried, launching himself at the purple winged girl.

"Bobby!" she exclaimed, a look of wonderment on her face.

"Tred?" Rhaksha breathed. Behind us, one of the Treds (either the copy or the original) leapt into the air and soared up to meet the rest of us.

"Tred!" Rhaksha shouted.

"Actually, I get the feeling that this is the copy," Eila broke in. "Hospital gown, shunt on his hand?"

"Yeah, that's the impression I get," Mist supplied.

"Uh, yeah. I'm Kichiro," he mumbled awkwardly.

"I'm Beatrix Webber," the tallest girl said. "That's Parker, and the triplets are Genesis, Exodus and Armageddon. Alex is the blondie and you seem to know Vi."  
"I'm Griffin. The tall tanned one is Eila, my second in command. The short tanned one is Rhaksha. Bobby is Vi's friend and Mist is the fox-tailed one."

Beatrix glanced at Parker and he nodded. Beatrix cleared her throat and said, "I think it's best if we don't join flocks. Too big, too conspicuous."

"I'm staying with Griffin," Bobby piped up. Violet nodded.

"Alright. I'm going with Bea," she replied. "See you sometime."

Alex and the triplet elected to stay with Bea and Parker. Eila, Rhaksha and Mist told me they wouldn't leave if I paid them in the tonnes of chocolate. In the end, it was just Kichiro left. He hadn't belonged to either of our flocks in the past, but we gave him a choice.

"Either or, Kichiro," Bea said firmly. Rhaksha grabbed his wrist.

"I need some answers from you," she hissed. Kichiro stiffened and didn't say a thing. When I looked away from them, the other flock had already disappeared.

"Let's go," I said, waving out my flock. Rhaksha let go of Kichiro's wrist and shot ahead, giving him a single venomous glance. I drifted back to Kichiro and gave him a reassuring look.

"Don't worry. She's just temperamental," I grinned.

We flew for an hour before touching down towards the middle of Pennsylvania, where Rhaksha immediately started grilling Kichiro on who/how/when/where/why/what-the freaking-hell-are-you-exactly-because-you-look-_exactly_-like-someone-I-know.

Eila got straight to the nitty-gritty.

"What about the Obliterators?" she asked seriously. Kichiro straightened up.

"They're worse than ever. The one I saw destroyed a full grown Eraser in just under seven seconds. The others should be about fifteen seconds or under," he said.

"What makes the one you saw different?" Mist put in.

"One word: Tred. The whitecoat's pet project and new head of Erasers," he muttered darkly.

"No. You're lying!" Rhaksha exclaimed, bolting upright.

"I'm not, Don't accuse me of things you wouldn't know about!"

"I do know, and Tred wouldn't ever do that! He wouldn't ally himself to the School!"

"What, did you know him personally?"

"I did! And it couldn't have been him. He took a bullet for me and _died_!"

Kichiro chuckled. "You are so naïve. You thought it was Tred that escaped with you? That he was willing to sacrifice his life for you?"

Rhaksha growled.

The corner of Kichiro's mouth lifted slightly in the ghost of a sardonic smile.

"It wasn't Tred that escaped with you. It was Kiyoshi, the first copy and my brother."

"You're lying. You can't be telling the truth! I won't believe you! No, no, no!" Rhaksha shouted.

"Have it your way," Kichiro said coldly.

"Cut it out, guys!" Mist cried, near to tears. "Can't we just relax?"

"Just go to bed, everyone," I said, putting my face in my hands. "We'll head for Virginia tomorrow."

The next couple of days were really rough going. Rhaksha kept glaring across the rest of us at Kichiro, and he acted like a brick wall. So we had this whole awkward family thing going on. The easygoing middle child (me), the exotic one (Eila), the bubbly little sister (Mist), the baby brother (Bobby), the feisty hothead (Rhaksha), and the mysterious, shadowy one with a hidden sweet side that's great with the kids (Kichiro).

We coasted into Virginia a couple of days later.

"Shush," Mist said, putting one hand up. One of her fox ears twiddled and swivelled. "I heard something."

Bobby listened too. "Something's coming."

Eila stood up and grabbed her knife out of her boot, unsheathing it. I stood as Kichiro stepped into the ring of shadow outside the firelight. Rhaksha lifted the fire out of the ground with a current of air and it bobbed in mid-air.

Kichiro gave a quiet warning growl, turning around and coming back into the light. Low chuckles resounded around us, like a big group of people were...

"Ambush!" I shouted. Eila went into hyperdrive. She became a blur, chucking Mist and Bobby into the sky and grabbing Rhaksha as she launched herself into the night. Us dudes followed the rest of our flock.

Mist cussed dirtily. A cloud of winged Erasers, a seriously big one, joined us in the air and howled with bloodlust.

One final Eraser rose into the air. It smirked and chuckled.

"Hello, Rhaksha."


	7. Chapter 7

**Griffin**

Tred smiled slyly and pointed his gun at Rhaksha.

"Or should I say, _Cadisha_?" he smirked, a glint in his eye.

"Tred?" Rhaksha said, a quiver in her voice. Maybe it was because her so-called friend was allied with the School and pointing a gun at her with the intention to hurt/maim/kill. Or maybe not.

"No, this can't be real. No, no, no, I'm dreaming," Rhaksha muttered, eyes wide.

"Au contraire, darling," Tred purred. "You think I have any respect, any _use_ for a scrawny runt like you? In fact, I think you're a worthless piece of trash."

"No. No!" Rhaksha whimpered.

Tred flicked the safety off and rubbed the slim barrel of the silencer.

"Oh, I'll enjoy this," he hissed, canines bared. His finger went to the trigger and he squeezed it. There was a whistling noise and a whoosh as a coloured blur smashed into Tred, The gun went off. Tred flipped over backwards in the air and the shot went wildly askew as Eila barrelled into him. An Eraser grabbed her and dragged her off, but she planted her foot in its face. Kichiro snarled and lunged at Tred while Bobby fought off one of the others. Mist got really pissed, and lightning bolts struck at the Erasers around her as she attacked.

I acquainted an Eraser's face with my fist.

Eraser-face, meet Mr. Fist McWhammy-Wham.

Tred leapt at Rhaksha, but Mist tackled him, knowing Rhaksha wouldn't have the guts to do what had to be done. Tred snarled at Mist and was about to hit her when Eila smashed into him sideways and Bobby conked him on the head with his foot.

Valiant efforts aside, there were just too many of them. Bobby narrowly avoided being gutted and panted tiredly, shoulders sagging with the effort of fighting in the air. Rhaksha's eye was swelling shut. What a bout me, you say? Stamina-wise, I could've kept fighting, except for the fact that I had a dislocated arm.

It's an uncomfortable truth. You cannot hit someone in the face if you have a dislocated arm.

**Below...**

Via aimed the sniper rifle into the air, adjusting the telescopic sights to catch a better view of the mutants in the air. Curse it, the avians were so damn _fast_! At this rate she'd never get a lock on the targets.

She finally decided that the copy of Tred was a no-go, since she couldn't tell which was which from this position. The tallest girl was definitely too fast. That left the albino, the short/tanned girl, the blondie and the kid.

Beside her, another young girl swung her rifle up and fired off two shots, aiming for the tallest girl and the youngest boy. The tallest girl jerked in the air and started to fall. Tne Tred copy shot in from of the youngest boy and took the bullet meant for the younger mutant. The Erasers backed off and scattered, making their way to the various rendezvous points. Via scowled.

"Matahzi," she muttered. Matahzi smiled mockingly, inspecting her perfectly groomed nails.

"Oh, Via," Matahzi cooed. Via growled. Itex's latest girl wonder, the 2% lynx, 0.5 % peregrine falcon, 1.5% red-bellied black snake hybrid, was getting on her nerves.

Someday, her rifle might slip and accidentally aim a bullet into Matazhi's pretty little head.

**Griffin**

"Eila!" Mist screamed, seeing the Nicaraguan go down. Another gunshot rang out from below and Kichiro swore, cradling his shoulder as his left wing slowly stopped working. I swore I could see a bullet hole through his wing. Bobby stared in horror as Kichiro fell after taking the bullet meant for him.

"Oh, crud," I muttered, shooting down and grabbing Eila as Rhaksha and Mist helped Kichiro, all philosophical differences aside.

Tred cackled and saluted mockingly at us, before flying off with the other Erasers as they scattered.

I caught Eila (ow, ow, ow, ow, _oh my God freaking ow my arm is dying!_) and carried her bridal-style (get your minds out of the gutter, sickos) until we could touch down on level ground. She looked dangerously pale under her tan. So did Kichiro. He looked like he was about to-

Oh, geez. His eyes rolled up in his head and he crumpled like a sheet of paper.

I tossed Eila's knife to Rhaksha with my good arm, ordering her to cut up spare shirts for bandages. Mist grabbed a shirt and started putting pressure on Eila's wound while I assessed the damage Kichiro had taken (with one hand). The bullet was still lodged in the wound and it looked like he might've broken a bone or something.

"Something's coming!" Bobby whispered urgently, pointing to the far end of the back road. A middle aged couple in fluoro parachute suits power-walking at dusk. Crud. The saw us just in the woods, hunched over two 'bodies'. The woman of the two sported overly bleached blonde hair and the man had the most pathetic comb-over I'd seen in a long time. And some of the whitecoats had pretty pathetic comb-overs.

"Kids, are you alright?" the man asked. The woman gasped, seeing the blood splashed on Mist's face and Kichiro's extreme paleness.

"Oh, my God!" the woman shrieked, pulling out her phone. "9-1-1, there's an emergency, these kids-"

"No!" Rhaksha shouted, but the woman paid no heed. A couple of minutes later, two ambulances arrived and they picked Eila and Kichiro up. I told Rhaksha to go with Eila and keep and eye on Bobby.

I tugged Mist with me into the other ambulance.

The paramedics turned Kichiro over and cut away his shirt.

"Oh, my God. What is this?" one of them asked, freaking out. The other stared at me. I glared at them.

"Stop the bleeding! You're paramedics, for God's sake!" Mist shouted, tears streaming down her face. That snapped them to it. They made a temporary bandage around his shoulder and did as best as they could with gauze pads on Kichiro's blue-black wing.

Mist buried her face in my good shoulder. I rubbed her head and popped my arm back into place with a horridious snap/crunch noise.

Cue horrified looks.

* * *

"And you're recombinant life-forms," the doctor said. I tensed in the chair and nodded tersely. He sighed and pulled up a couple on the screen.

"We're not recognising anything, and unless you can give us more information there's a good chance that your... siblings might not make it," he said. I stiffened.

"Oh."

The doctor unhooked his stethoscope and put it against my chest. His eyebrows shot up and a look of shock came across his face.

I squirmed, feeling more like a side-show freak than ever.

* * *

Anne Walker picked up the phone in her office. She maintained the usual, "Anne Walker, FBI. How can I help you?"

A whispery voice, distorted and coated with layers of static came through the receiver. Anne flicked on her microchip earpiece by pushing the switch implanted in her tooth. The static cleared and the Director's voice came on.

"Has there been any news on the avians?" the Director hissed eagerly.

Anne said, "There's been an alert at one of the Virginia hospitals that three, possibly six recombinants are there, and that two are undergoing emergency surgery as we speak."

"Is it Maximum Ride's flock?" the Director asked urgently.

"No," Anne said, "It doesn't seem to be so."

The Director laughed, a low, malice-filled sound. "Well, Anne, I think it's time for you to take another family of avian-humans under your wing."

Anne grinned, replying, "Oh, yes, Director. Another flock yet."


	8. Chapter 8

**Griffin**

I staggered and flopped on one of the empty hospital beds. The room spun and I struggled to keep my lunch down.

"Oh, holy hell," I moaned, feeling sick beyond belief. Mist wrung her hands. Rhaksha snorted.

Bobby poked me and I groaned.

"Please, don't," I mumbled, hands up in surrender. "I've just given too much blood for it to be healthy. Plus the fact that I'm the only pure avian that's old enough to donate. So back off."

Bobby stepped back, an annoyed expression on his face. Mist looked at me with concern. The door opened and a nurse in blue-green scrubs arrived.

"Are they okay?" I asked, jumping up. The room span and I almost fell. I caught myself before it faceplanted on the linoleum flooring. The nurse handed me a juice bottle and a chocolate muffin.

"It was touch and go for a while, but they should be okay," she said. "We have to take down your details. Someone 'll be here soon."

Rhaksha sighed in relief and Bobby hugged Mist. I sat back down, thinking about what'd happen next.

"We need a cover story, and stage names," I said, interrupting the Mist and Bobby happy session. Mist grinned.

"I've always wanted to be an Ingrid-Elise," Mist said, a conniving look on her face.

"Bobby looks like a Bobby. There's no point in denying it or saying otherwise," Rhaksha stated flatly. "I, myself, am going with Selene. I've used it before."

"What about Felix?" I asked. Rhaksha nodded in the affirmative.

"Eila strikes me as a Flor. You know, with the endlessly rolled R?" Bobby said, rolling his R to demonstrate.

"Perfect!" Mist beamed.

"And for Kichiro... Maybe Aether?" I asked.

"You," Mist said, "are a _genius_."

I grinned. "Nice to know I'm appreciated."

* * *

Anne Walked tugged her suit jacket down and tucked a freshly dyed nut-brown curl behind her ear. Beside her, he unsuspecting FBI coworkers similarly adjusted their badges and earpieces.

"Be careful when questioning these children, alright? We need to earn their trust so we can find out more about them," Anne addressed her agents, glancing pointedly at Dean Mickelson. He'd been the one to cop Maximum Ride's wrath, screwing up royally and nearly destroying any chance of the leader ever trusting the FBI. Agent Mickelson coloured.

One of the younger agents opened the door and Anne entered in the lead of the group. The mutants looked up. The youngest was undoubtedly adorable, with fluffy strawberry-blonde hair. The next youngest had blue-tipped blonde hair and looked both agreeable and easily influenced.

The oldest girl present was as short as the youngest boy, and had mussed black hair in a messy tail. Her soft, full lips were set in a grim line and her green eyes blazed. Anne noted that she looked like a rebel; that might pose a problem in the future for the Director's plans. The oldest boy there was pale beyond belief, with bright white hair, pale ivory skin and very light blue eyes. He seemed to be an albino.

Anne smiled warmly at the children, hiding her interest (and to a degree, morbid fascination) in them. She wanted to know how they worked, what made them have the unbelievable _drive_ that they had.

"Hi. My name is Anne Walker, and I'm with the FBI," she said to the oldest boy. "We've noticed you're in some trouble, and we'd like to help you. But first, food. You must be hungry."

An agent wheeled out a trolley of hospital meals, and the mutants' eyes locked onto the food.

"Wait." The oldest girl eyed Anne suspiciously. "How do we know it's safe to eat?"

Anne recalled how Maximum Ride had reacted much the same two years ago. Smiling, she took a bite off one of the plates and gulped it down.

"See? It's completely safe," she soothed. Seeing this, the albino motioned for the others to go and take a plate. They fell on the food, but reserved some, seemingly for the other two mutants. The food disappeared in minutes, leaving the other agents shocked. Anne maintained her smooth composure.

"Now that you're done, we have a couple of questions to ask you," Anne said. They looked at each other and nodded cautiously. Anne smiled and directed the agents to draw the curtains between beds in the ward, creating impromptu interview rooms.

Anne sat with the albino and smiled for about the fiftieth time that day.

"Hi. What's your name? I'm Anne Walker," she smiled. The albino lay down and buried his face in the pillow, before looking up.

"My name is Felix. I'm sixteen," he mumbled.

"Who are the rest of the kids to you?" Anne asked. "Are you... romantically involved with any of them?"

"N-no!" he said, flustered. "They're my fl-family."

"Oh, I see. Do you know anything about a man named Jeb Batchelder?"

The mutant considered it. "Can't say I do."

* * *

"What's your name, sonny?"

"Bobby," he replied innocently, eyes watering.

"Now, how old are you?" the agentg asked gently, seeing the kid was already upset.

"Nine," he whimpered.

"Can you tell me anything about your-"

Bobby burst into tears. The agent back-pedalled and tried to quiet the wailing kid.

* * *

"Hi! I'm Ingrid-Elise," Mist beamed. "What's your name? How old are you? I'm fourteen."

"Uh, my name is Gwen Brittain," the agent deadpanned.

"Did I do something wrong? Why aren't you happy?" Mist asked innocently, eyes widened to their most appealing magnitude. Brittain blinked and tapped her pen against her clipboard.

"Uh, could you tell me how you're related to... Felix, it says," Agent Brittain asked flatly.

"Felix is my big brother. Our parents wanted a rainbow family, see, just like the Jolie-Pitts, that's why they adopted Felix, me, Bobby, Selene, Aether and Flor," 'Ingrid-Elise' explained cheerfully.

"And have you ever met a man called Jeb Batchelder?"

The girl thought long and hard. "Uh, is the name Jeb Biblical?"

* * *

Dean Mickelson sat, stony faced, across from Rhaksha.

"And your name and age?"

"Selene. I'm fifteen."

"Have you ever heard of a science lab called The School?"

"No, Dean, I have not."

"Have you ever heard of a man named Jeb Batchelder?"

"No," Rhaksha replied, straight faced.

Dean gave her a photo, showing a blurred glimpse of a familiar figure. Rhaksha struggled to keep her reaction down.

"Do you recognise this man?"

"No, Dean. I most definitely do not. I have never seen him in my life."

**Griffin**

We stumbled into the ward were Kichiro and Eila were sleeping. I motioned for the rest of the flock to keep quiet so as not to disturb our other siblings.

"Someone turn the lights off," Kichiro mumbled, turning onto his good side as his injured wing lay loosely tucked under his white hospital gown. Bobby flicked off the switch and Kichiro sighed.

"This place brings up bad memories," he mumbled. I looked at the sky outside. It had gotten late, and the clock said that it was nearing midnight. A couple of yoga mats sat by the door and I tossed one to each of us.

"Guys, it's late. Crash soon, m'kay?" I called, spreading my yoga mat on the floor and lying down on it, bundling up my windbreaker for a pillow.

Mist yawned and stretched out, falling asleep in just minutes. Bobby curled up into a little ball, while Rhaksha spread her yoga mat between the two hospital beds. I tried to block out all my thoughts and fall asleep.

Unfortunately, wishful thinking is just that.

Wishful thinking.


	9. Chapter 9

Rhaksha couldn't sleep.

Every time she closed her eyes she'd see _him_, smirking and pointing the gun at her. He really didn't feel anything for her, and held her in the same esteem as the cast-off wrapper of a Twinkie. She tried and tried to banish the image, but it was burned onto her mind's eye.

Her gaze settled on Kichiro's sleeping face. Of its own accord, her hand reached out and smoothed back his sleep tossed hair. The familiar blue-black silk twined around her fingers and slipped from her grasp just as quickly, like water. He looked softer, younger, more vulnerable; Rhaksha was tempted to forget that she really _didn't _like him, but she saw so much of Tred... or at least what she thought Tred could have been. Tears blurred in her vision and caressed her face in crystal ribbons.

Her fingers trailed down to trace the smooth curve of his nose, the angle of his cheekbones. Her fingers felt rough and dirty against the warm skin of his face. With a feather light touch, she traced the familiar lines of his face and stroked his hair once more. She wiped her face with the back of her hand, but her eyes stung and the tears refused to stop.

Kichiro stirred and Rhaksha snatched her hand back, feeling guilty and angry at herself. What was she thinking?

"Don't stop," he mumbled sleepily. "Please."

Rhaksha hesitated. Kichiro opened his eyes, and his face lost the young vulnerability it had a few moments ago. Rhaksha swallowed around the lump in her throat and got up, shudders wracking her frame. She turned abruptly, swiping at her tears and making for the door.

Kichiro got up and reached out to catch her wrist. Rhaksha turned and fixed him with such an agonised, furious look that all he could do was stand there, open mouthed, reaching for thin air. Rhaksha swung the door open and marched into the corridor, leaving Kichiro alone with his thoughts.

He knew he was supposed to feel something. The cliched story would have called for anguish, or heartbreak, but all he felt was remorse.

**Griffin**

Anne pulled me into the corridor. I spared one final glance at the others, checking that they'd be okay. The kids were wolfing breakfast, while Eila bunched and twisted the covers in her hands to relieve her boredom. Rhaksha refused to look at Kichiro, and Kichiro just looked plain confused, fiddling with the IV tube.

"Felix," Anne started, " I have an offer to make you."

"And what might this offer be, exactly?" I asked, taking a cynical tone.

Anne took a deep breath. "Would you like to stay at my house for a while?"

I blinked, and Anne continued. "The FBI would like to learn about you- in non-invasive, perfectly harmless ways- and in return we'll give Aether and Flor the best medical care money can get, and give the rest of you guys a chance to rest, relax and be safe."

I weighed up the options. _If _we decided not to accept Anne's offer, Kichiro wouldn't be able to fly for a while with that wing of his. Eila... Well, the less said the better. We'd be walking targets if the Erasers wanted to nab us. I also go the feeling that secret agents would shoot us with tranquliser darts, ship us to Anne's place and force us to have fun, in all gelled-hair poofy-skirted fifties glory.

Ignore me. Weird mental processes.

"I'll have to discuss this with the rest of my fl-family," I said slowly. Anne smiled.

"Sure. Just tell me when you've decided," she said kindly.

_Wait, kindly?_

There was definitely something telling me Anne wasn't going to be any good for us.

* * *

I told the flock all about the whole 'Go Home With Anne Walker, FBI Agent You've Known For A Day' plan. Kichiro looked highly confused. Eila beat the snot out of her pillow. Mist squealed, and Bobby jumped up and down in an extremely hyper manner. Rhaksha snorted and refused to acknowledge Kichiro.

Somehow, probably due to the limited options that we had, we ended up piled into Anne's big, too-comfy Suburban, driving through picturesque scenery- you know, all the 'gently rolling hills, maple trees, cows grazing in paddocks' crap.

"Wow," Bobby breathed, nose ground into the the window. Anne laughed and Mist stared wide eyed at the scenery. Kichiro hissed as we went over a bump, and Eila winced. Rhaksha sat with her forehead resting on the glass, a far-away look in her eyes.

Turned out that Anne lived in – wait for it- a _seven bedroom three bathroom freaking country manor with a pond_, for goodness' sake. Anne settled each of us in our own rooms, and even said that she'd take us to the store to pick up paints, wallpapers and new furniture. The old stuff was less than usable.

She apologetically told us that she only had microwave meals in the fridge, and we got one each and a whole heap of other stuff from the pantry, like protein bars, cereal, marshmallows, chocolate and popcorn.

When it came to nine o'clock, she announced that we better get to bed. She even tucked Bobby in. Eila would normally have done that, but she seemed too tired to care. Rhaksha skulked off and slammed her door, and Anne asked what she'd done wrong. I placed my hand on her shoulder, and noticed that I towered over her at the height of six foot one.

I gave her a reassuring look. "She's just been really moody these last couple of days."

Anne stared down the hallway after her. I hoped it'd get better over the next couple of days.

It didn't. And when I say that...

_I really freaking mean it_.


	10. Chapter 10

**Griffin**

Mist squealed and picked up a roll of wallpaper. It was sky blue and had white fluffy clouds at the top, while a wildflower meadow bloomed underneath. She added this newest addition to her shopping cart and grabbed another can of blue paint for good measure. I glanced at Bobby, who compared two different shades of green paint. Eila loaded another can of orange into her cart. Kichiro bundled another couple of brushes into his cart. Rhaksha glowered at her inoffensive purple cans of paint, shooting a dark glare at Kichiro, how narrowed his eyes at her in response. The tension between the two hadn't gotten any better over the past week. It had gotten worse, and the rest of us were stuck in the middle.

Kichiro had gotten so pissed at all the glares he got that he started giving as good as he got. Rhaksha in turn got more aggressive, but never said a word to Kichiro. Not one single word, in a week.

I mean, come one. A day? Yeah. But a _week_?

Anne had already helped us pick out furniture, and it'd be delivered in two days' time. That gave us ample time to do the redecorating before the furniture had to be moved into our rooms.

Anne paid for us at the check-out and we loaded everything into the boot of her suburban. Rhaksha sat shotgun while Kichiro glowered at the back of her head from the back seat. Eila shrugged at me and pointed at the two of them. I shrugged back.

Anne pulled into the carpark of a rather large shopping mall. I mean, _large_. There seemed to be every imaginable person in America crowding through those doors. Kichiro twitched. Eila put on a bland expression. A couple of dudes in high-school jackets smirked and wolf-whistled at Eila, eyes travelling down her body. I glared at them. Not just anyone can look at my sister and right-wing gal like that.

They looked at me oddly and pointed not so subtly. Eila flipped them the bird as Kichiro slipped his arm around her waist.

"Play along," he hissed. Eila smiled and seemed to lean to whisper in his ear. What she was _actually_ doing was leaning up to bite Kichiro's earlobe. Hard.

Rhaksha rolled her eyes and proceeded to ignore the two. The high school dudes seemed sufficiently put off and turned to cat-call another girl. Anne split us into two groups, boys and girls. She handed me two hundred bucks and told me that it should cover our expenses, and told us to go to the food court once we were done.

I tossed together a pile of clothes and shoes for Bobby, and went to buying my own wardrobe. Kichiro had picked his out, in coordinating tones of dark blue, black and dark grey. We paid for the gear and went to the guys' bathroom to change out from our ratty old clothes.

With the left-over money, we headed to the food court. I told the others to watch the table and I went to order a whole heap of burgers for the three of us.

"Yo, Felix!" Eila called. Bobby and Kichiro's gazes snapped to the source of the sound, and I gaped.

Eila led the other two flock girls. Calf-length black combat boots with two sets of buckles across the back were on her feet. Under her olive green pleated shorts were black fishnets. She had a sunset orange tank-top on under her utilitarian olive cargo jacket. A silk scarf in orange and fuchsia tones was wound around her waist over the cargo jacket. Her dark brown blew back a little. I saw Kichiro's eyes widen, and he turned away to hide the hint of colour that crept to his cheeks.

Mist had tied her hair into a spiked out messy bun, and wore an oversized black Shiroi Neko shirt with a skull printed on the front. She too wore shorts, but these were distressed denim shorts with the bottom of the pockets sticking out from the hem. Mist also had combat boots, and sucked on a lollipop.

Rhaksha wore a hooded red tank top over a long sleeved mesh shirt. She wore black skinny pants with chains cris-crossing the front. Again, combat boots made their appearance. Fingerless gloves with metal studs over the knuckles covered her hands and would probably make for one mean punch.

Eila and Mist sat down, and Kichiro joined me in the line. Anne shooed Rhaksha in our direction. Oh, geez. Rhaksha is just a time-bomb waiting to blow, especially around Kichiro. Kichiro bumped into Rhaksha and she elbowed him, hard.

"Could I get two chicken burgers, one of the fish burger things-"

Kichiro stomped on Rhaksha's foot, and hissing, she crashed into him. Kichiro shoved her off and she shoved him right back.

"-and three, no, make that four hamburgers, with extra cheese and no pickles please. And, a chocolate milkshake, a lime Fanta and a Diet Coke. Hey, Ae-"

A furious growl and a horrible crash made me whip around and look at the other two flock members behind me. Rhaksha had taken a shot at Kichiro and he'd blown up, responding just as violently. They were currently both on the ground, wrestling. Eila muttered something under her breath as I dragged Rhaksha off Kichiro. Eila grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back. The silent crowd that had gathered around us looked on in astonishment, disbelief and some form of distress.

"What," I hissed in Rhaksha's ear, "are you _doing_?"

She growled. I turned to the girl at the counter and gave her a serious look.

"Sorry, cancel that order," I said politely, marching Rhaksha away and out of the food court. Eila kept an iron grip on Kichiro's wrist, smiling pleasantly at him every so often. Anne and the younger kids trailed behind us, trying to hide their alarm.

We basically threw them into the car and ordered them not to say anything or we'd make mincemeat out of them. The ride home was tense and silent, and Anne took uneasy glances of us from the corners of her eyes. As soon as we got home I grabbed Kichiro and Rhaksha by the collars of their shirts and threw them into the living room.

"Alright, I've had _enough_."


	11. Chapter 11

"I have had it with you two! What is wrong with you both? Rhaksha, you've been ignoring Kichiro, _for no freaking reason_! Kichiro, as wrong as this sounds,_ violence is not the answer, especially against your flock-mates_!" I shouted. "Now sort it out, before I pulverise your sorry little butts into fish- paste!"

Rhaksha whirled to face Kichiro and the snarled. Kichiro growled and I swore his canines got longer.

"Why the hell have you been ignoring me? I mean, I haven't done anything to you!" Kichiro shouted.

"Oh yeah? How about _you're ruining my life_?" Rhaksha yelled back.

"Ruining your life? What the heck? What do you mean I'm ruining your life?"

"You're deliberately, yeah, deliberately, telling lies to my face about Tred!"

"How many times do I have to tell you! Tred is evil, and I'm only trying to make sure you don't get killed!"

"Yeah, then? Why'd you tell me not to stop, back then? Huh?"

"Come one! I was so half dead with sleep and pain I could've been drunk, for goodness sake. I don't get why you're accusing me1 I mean-"

"This is silly! Why are we arguing about-"

"Damn right you are! This is ridiculous- Wait, what?"

Kichiro backtracked and processed what Rhaksha had just said.

"Oh," he said. Rhaksha lost her aggressive face and cocked her head.

"I have it," I piped up. "I t was just just a huge misunderstanding, wasn't it?"  
They looked at me, and slowly nodded.

"Now shake on it," I ordered. They shook hands immediately, and a relieved smile broke out on Kichiro's face.

"Oh, good. That was getting awkward," he smiled. Rhaksha grinned.

"Yeah. So, are we cool?" she asked.

"Uh, duh. You're like, my sister," Kichiro said in a 'duh' tone of voice. Rhaksha smiled sincerely.

"Brother," she said.

"Can we come out now?" Mist asked, sticking her head out the kitchen door. Bobby popped out under her chin. I grinned.

"Safe, guys," I said.

Eila emerged and Anne followed after the kids, a relieved smile on her face. She tucked a brown curl behind her ear and clapped as if she was organising a party game.

"Who wants to get decorating?" she asked.

Everyone cheered.

Wait. Scratch that. It was just the kids.

* * *

Eila grabbed a clean sponge, dampened it and swirled it lightly into the blue-violet paint. She lifted the sponge, blending the violet into the fresh indigo paint she'd just applied to the wall. Humming to a song she'd uploaded onto Anne's mp3 player, she stretched to reach a spot higher along the wall.

She stretched up and dabbled a bit more violet on the wall, before calling Rhaksha in and telling her to dry the wall. Rhaksha complied with a huff. She didn't take orders well. Eila grabbed a hoodie and put it on over her tank top, complaining about the cold breeze. Rhaksha snorted and stalked out.

Eila removed the paintbrushes from their packet and opened the little pot of white. She dipped the tip of the brush in and set to carefully delineating tiny stars on the wall in the indigo area, and on the black silhouette of the city near the floor. Eila took off her hoodie and twisted her hair around a spare paintbrush. The heat betrayed the fact that it was nearing the middle of summer, nearly roasting hot.

She cranked the window open and continued with her handiwork. Bobby ducked in, a green paint smear across his nose.

"Hey Eila," he said. Eila continued humming, not hearing the quiet nine-year-old.

"Eila!" Bobby said, more loudly. Eila's head snapped around to face Bobby, and she squeaked, snatching up the hoodie. Bobby's forehead wrinkled and he gently took her wrist and turned the inside up.

"Eila, what is this?" he asked quietly, tracing the cris-crossed scars covering every square inch of flesh on Eila's bare arm. This fingers came to rest on a raised scar right across the centre of Eila's palm.

Bobby's eyes clouded over, and he screamed.


	12. Chapter 12

**Griffin**

An ear shattering scream errupted in the house and I dropped the pile of plates I'd been carrying, eyes and ears straining to find the source of that one horrendous noise. Kichiro all but broek the door down while trying to enter the kitchen, and Mist knocked her chair over. Rhaksha automatically got her knife from her boot, copying Eila's mannerism.

"Eila and Bobby!" Mist shouted, and we ran up the stairs. I kicked down the door and found Bobby desperately clining to Eila's hand, eyes unfocused. A greenish glow surrounded both of them and Eila shuddered, eyes flickering back and forth but not seeming to take anything in.

"Eila!" Mist shouted. Eila screamed and scurnched her eyes closed, lashing out blindly and sending Mist straight into the wall. Rhaksha tried to rip Bobby off Eila, but she hissed and withdrew, hands looking red and burnt.

Bobby cried out once again and fell to his knees, breathing hard. The glow faded and Eila stumbled. Kichiro caught her and gently set her down on the floor.

"What's going on?" I demanded. Mist looked bewildered and Rhaksha's mouth was pressed into a grim line.

"Griffin." Rhaksha's eyes flicked to Eila's outstretched arm.

Scars covered them like sleeves, leaving a patchwork of identifying marks. None of her was spared.

"Eila, what is this?" Kichiro whispered, tracing the scars around her wings. Eila swiped her hand across her face and sat, bringing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

"It's a long, painful, frightening story," she mumbled. Eila took a deep breath.

We plunged headfirst into her nightmare.

_The fluorescent strip light flickered and faded, light coming in intermittent bursts that faded just as quickly as they came. An experiment turned over, slithering, and curled into a foetal position. Eila huddled closer into her grimy chocolate brown wings, trying to avoid notice. She pushed further into the shadows at the back of the Kanine Kamper, away from eyes that seemed to want to dissect her with every glance._

_Thera, one of the more klepto avians, muttered a disjointed nursery rhyme while rocking herself back and forth._

Round and round the dissection lab,

the doctors chased the weasel...

_Via growled at her and Bitter hissed, exposing his snake-like fangs. The mad tune danced and flurried, permeating into the deepest reaches of the room. Thera grinned wildly, pushed into that zone where all reality lost meaning; where time would melt and wither away until a slap in the face brought it back._

_The door squeaked open, and Dr. Olsen and Dr. Windham walked in. They wheeled a cart each, and scanned down the rows. They stopped in front of Demmi's crate, roughly slinging it onto a cart as the tiny weasel-mutant twitched in fear. They stopped in front of Eila's crate and hefted her onto the other cart. _

_Olsen went out and brought in a batch of Erasers. Two took over wheeling the carts and the rest served as an escort for the scientists and the mutants. They split off at the for between testing rooms #48- 0 and #47-9. _

_Demmi whimpered as they took her to #48-0._

_Eila shivered and tucked her wings in. Two erasers nearly tore the door off her crate and grabbed her none too gently by the arms. They dragged her up the stairs and into the platform above the Tank. A couple of whitecoats took over and hooked her up to electrodes before slipping a mask onto her face. The Erasers threw her into the Tank, and Eila felt the viscous liquid slap and squelch as she sank into it. The tube connected to the mask started to feed oxygen, and the Tank-sludge began to hum and glow._

_Eila's eyes flickered shut, and whitecoats began to flips switches and turn dials._

_Eila screamed._

_Her limbs jerked violently as the alternate-reality simulator generated an imagined situation. This time, it was a test of her reaction to pain. The metallic nano-particles in the Tank gel snapped together and red lines began to open, crisscrossing over Eila's skin. She screamed again, and slammed her fist into an imaginary opponent._

_Data logged on the computer, priceless bytes of information worth millions. _

_Eila shivered and shook her hair, vainly trying to dislodge the yellowish sludge. They wheeled her down the #47 corridor, into the #48 corridor, and past the open door leading into #48-0._

_On the table was Demmi. Her hands and feet were tied to two different metal bars, and her arms were lying out from their sockets at an odd angle. Her legs were definitely dislocated. Demmi's eyes were open and glassy, and tear tracks dampened her cheeks. Her face was frozen in a scream, and her body was ripped in two completely. Eila turned away, struggling to keep her meagre breakfast down. No matter how many times she saw victims of the Stretcher, it never got any easier to bear._

_Blood sprayed across the churned sand and Eila grunted, picking herself up and blocking the next attack that the bat-mutant sent at her._

_Bitter hissed at Via and she smirked, crossing her arms. Her freshly purple-streaked hair gleamed in the fluorescent strip lights and her fancy-shmancy human clothes did nothing to appease the rest of the mutants. They growled and shifted, angered by the betrayal of one of their own. Thera laughed wildly, and screamed at Via._

"_You're just a pawn, darling! You're just a tiny piece in this game!" she giggled, squealing and clapping her hands. She laughed madly, that vacant look in her eyes as they rolled back and forth, wide open. She laughed and exclaimed again._

"_Dead before sunrise!" _

_Via growled and her Eraser escort picked up Thera's cage and threw it into the wall. Thera smirked and rubbed the back of her hand across her bleeding mouth. The wild glee was replaced by an almost sane, conniving look._

"_Oh, yes, darling. Definitely dead."_

_Endless round after endless round of mazes, test-fights, sleep deprivation trials, starvation sessions; season after season of pain, agony, mindless violence and cruelty._

_Scream, after scream, after scream._

_Shock tests, blood samples. Running for hours to test the limits of her stamina. Food allocation reduced little by little to test her body's endurance. Every time they brought her back, beaten, battered, starved, Eila desperately prayed that they'd leave her alone. They never did. Time lost its meaning and Eila almost went over the edge._

_Until she saw the sky. Through the window. The open window._

Mist shuddered and Bobby sobbed, tucked against Rhaksha. A haunted look was in Eila's eyes, and Kichiro encircled her with his arms. I rubbed Mist's head and she sniffled, wiping away a stray tear.

Rhaksha shakily got to her feet, and brushed off her pants.

"No offense or anything, but after this whole angst-fest, I need chocolate. Like, badly," she said flatly.

Eila blinked and laughed. Kichiro bit his lip and forced his chuckles to stay _down_. Anne popped in and looked at us strangely.

"Guys, dinner's getting cold!" she said, exasperated. Mist giggled and I grinned.

"We're coming. We're coming," I said.


	13. Chapter 13

**Griffin**

The next two weeks after that were smooth sailing. We six got into the -just listen- _routine_ of living like, y'know, normal people. We had breakfast, lunch and dinner, punctuated with flying, swimming, horseback riding, watching TV, reading, surfing the net and teaching Bobby to read. Anne adjusted to us, and figured out everyone's little quirks of personality. Stuff like, how Kichiro _had_ to have a cup of lemon and honey _every_ night at _precisely_ 8:42 before going to bed at 9:13. How Mist had really skinny feet and always had to get a size 39 in shoes. She knew that Rhaksha didn't eat spinach and cooked Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce instead. She always got Bobby the plain band-aids because she knew he was deathly afraid of the little Barney-patterned ones.

What about me, you ask? She cooked creamy, bacon-y pasta carbonara for me, once a week every Thursday night.

It was on a carbonara night that Anne dropped the bombshell on us.

Anne wiped her mouth with one of the paper napkins and set down her fork. I set the plate down from my face, having licked it clean of any sauce left. Kichiro tapped his nose while looking at me oddly. I automatically wiped my nose with my napkin. It came away with a smear of cream sauce.

Joyous.

Anne smiled at us, the corners of her eyes crinkling.

"That was yummy, Anne," Bobby said, grinning. Anne laughed.

"Good thing you like it. Pasta carbonara is one of the few things I can cook without burning," she said. She looked at us, examining each of us in detail as if memorising our faces, voice, manners, expressions.

"You've done so well here," she began. Rhaksha stiffened slightly, and Kichiro's face went blank.

"I think it's time for us to take the next step."

No matter how nice you are to us, Anne, if you say _adoption_ we'll be outta here like bats out of hell. We can't be chained down, no matter what.

"I've enrolled you in school."

Eila and Kichiro looked at each other, blinked, and burst out laughing. Mist joined them, Bobby follow, and I soon succumbed. Rhaksha snorted and rested her head agaisnt the table as her shoulders shuddered with silent laughter. I somehow managed to catch the fleeting expression of displeasure that crossed Anne's face.

"I'm serious, guys," she almost snapped. Anne looked anguished, and she pleaded, "Your education has been basically non-existent, and you've never had the chance to have friends your age! It's tragic that you've never had a childhood, and you think it's funny that I'm trying to give you back what you've never had?"

The others stopped laughing and I took that as my cue. Guilt washed over me and I stared at the tabletop. Man, if it's one thing I can't resist, it's being sincerely guilt-tripped, like Anne seemed to be serious about the whole 'childhood' thing. Damn.

I glanced at the others. Kichiro rubbed the back of his neck uneasily. Mist bit her lip. Eila studied one of the scars on her hands. Rhaksha stared out the window, and Bobby fidgeted.

I rolled my shoulders.

"Alright..." I mumbled hesitantly.

* * *

"Oh, geez," Mist mumbled, head resting on the table. She was dressed in an offensively pastel baby blue uniform dress with white trim, a navy and fawn bow-tie and a freaking sailor collar. Highly polished black mary janes were slipped on over her white socks and her hair was neatly tied back with a hair tie that matched the bow-tie. Her blazer was slung over the back of the chair and it was in the same navy and fawn check as her hair tie.

"Is this freaking Japan or something?" Kichiro muttered. He'd roughly shoved his pristine white sleeves back in order not to get jam on them. His navy uniform blazer was crumpled beyond recognition, and his tie had been pulled down.

"Chiii-ro-chan!" Rhaksha yodeled in sing-song style, voice too innocently sweet to bode well. "If it was you who finished off the conditioner I swear I'll rip your head off!"

Kichiro flinched, shoved the rest of his toast into his mouth and grabbed his blazer and bag. He ducked into the laundry to do some last minute ironing (which he is actually uncannily good at).

Rhaksha thundered down the stairs, and irate Eila following her while wrestling a brush through her hair. They had the high school pleated check skirt, the tucked-in white sailor blouse with navy trim and the checked bow-tie. Eila was wearing her big stompy boots and nearly kicked the door of the laundry down. Kichiro held the iron out in their direction, hot-plate out.

"Stay away. I've got the iron," he said, almost looking panicked in the face of the Short And Feisty Female Tornado of Doom and Bloodthirsty Mutant Amazonian Warrior-Girl.

_Almost_. That's saying something.

Eila growled and removed the brush from her hair, bonking Kichiro over the head with it. Consequently mussing his freshly shampooed, conditioned hair. He squeaked in surprise and clapped his free hand over his mouth.

"I swear I heard something squeak. I hope it wasn't Kichiro. Ew," Mist said, shuddering, "Unnatural."

"Bobby, no spacing on the teachers, please," I called.

"Yeppers," he called back through a mouthful of _something_. I wouldn't like to know what, thank you very much.

"Get in the car, kids!" Anne called. "And put on your blazers! Look neat for your first day, huh?"

* * *

"Psst," someone whispered, tapping my shoulder. "Hey, you!"

I turned around to see a petite Asian girl sitting behind me. She looked at me seriously, scanning me up and down.

"You realise you're a prime target for the Lissa-bot? The whole rolled up sleeves, loose tie, messy-hair bad boy thing going on for you?" she said seriously. She dug into her bag and produced a pair of thick-framed glasses and a comb.

"Comb, and hurry up about it! Put the glasses on and pull your tie up," she said, while producing a wad of what looked like meaningless algebra. "Hunch like a geek and she won't try and flirt with you. I can't help your brother, I only had one pair of glasses in my bag, and he's too far away to reach inconspicuously."

I did what she ordered me to just as a taller red-head with too much make-up and not enough modesty positioned herself in front of Kichiro's desk. I hunched over hurriedly.

"Hey," she said in a low, seductive voice. She leaned over and placed her hands on the table. "Do you know where the research materials are?"

Kichiro looked up from his English work, looked at her and shook his head, before squinting at the chicken-scratch covering his notebook.

"Oh, well, the encyclopaedias are over on the right side of the classroom, and the computers are just under the windows over there. There're more dictionaries and thesauruses at the back."

Kichiro looked up again and nodded.

She glanced in my direction and I hurriedly looked back to my 'work'.

"You know, I'm really glad you transferred here," she said. Kichiro looked confused.

"Uh, why?" he asked warily.

"That's for me to know," she said, trailing her finger down his jaw and tapping his nose, "and for you to find out."

Oh, ew. Just ew.

"See? Just...ew," the girl said, shuddering and continuing with her Honors Trigonomety.

"Uh, thanks," I said awkwardly. She looked up through her bangs and over her glasses. She smiled at me and put her pen down.

"No prob. The name's Fleur."

"Felix," I replied. "Now, seeing your Honors Trig, I figure you _may_ be able to help me with this tiny little problem I have."

"Which problem?" Fleur asked, looking up.

"Uh," I muttered, rubbing the back of my neck. "Make that _all_ the problems."

She laughed lightly and I blinked.

"Let me guess. Hate maths?" she asked. "No worries. Hate maths myself."

"Now that's hard to believe," I said, leaning back and taking off the glasses. The lenses were interfering with my vision. Fleur laughed again.

"Better, believe it, Felix," she said, before stuffing all her sheets together and shoving them into her bag. She produced a notebook and picked up her (...Monokuro Boo?) pen.

"Writing's more my style," she explained. She glanced out the window and looked at me, grinning. "Say, how much do you like ice-cream?"


	14. Chapter 14

"Wait, what?" Rhaksha asked, back tracking and looking extremely confused.

"I'm going out on Friday," I repeated slowly.

"So you asked someone out?" Kichiro asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Uh, no. I got asked out," I said, sheepishly, rubbing the back of my neck.

Eila laughed at me.

"Oh, geez," she gasped. "You got asked out by a girl?"

"Well, it isn't _technically _a date," I explained. "Fleur had an extra ticket to that Epica tribute concert..."

Rhaksha choked on her oatmeal. "_Fleur_?"

"Yes!" I exclaimed, frustrated. I ran my hands through my wet hair and slung my towel around my neck. "Is there something illegal about it?"

"Chill, sheesh," Mist said.

"Can't _wait_ to meet her," Kichiro said dryly. "If she's anything like that girl from class, I think I'll barf."

"Don't judge," Rhaksha tutted.

Bobby took a bite out of his banana as Mist sucked her berry smoothie through a straw. We'd just gotten in from swimming in the pond, and we'd set out our homework on the dinner table.

"Phew," Eila said, leaning back from the table and wiping her hand across her brow. "Finally. That took ages."

"Was that the..."

"The trig? I know."

"I finished that at school."

"You _what_?"

"...With Fleur's help."

"ARGH!" Kichiro, Eila and Rhaksha growled, throwing their hands up.

* * *

The door bell rang and someone (most likely Anne or Eila, who was vegging out on the sofa) opened it.

"Hi, I'm Fleur Neo. Uh, is Felix in?" I heard Eila reply, and Fleur giggled. Eila probably told her that I was a lazy, hard-of-hearing slob.

"FELIX!" Eila roared. I clunked down the stairs and crashed into the foyer, leaping over Bobby (who was laying on the floor, head in one doorway, body in the hall, feet in the other doorway) and dodging Mist's heap of novels.

"Whoa," I heard Kichiro whisper, and a sharp thwack. Fleur was dressed in a slim-fitting pair of distressed black jeans, a kimono jacket and an emerald satin top. She smiled and peered at me over her glasses. She looked so cute and innocent, yet edgy. It was hard to describe.

"Hi," she said. I smiled and brushed down my jeans. I grabbed my leather jacket off the stand and stuck my hands in my pockets. Mist handed me my wallet.

"So, uh, what now?" I asked. Fleur laughed and dragged me outside just as Eila yelled at her to bring me back before one.

"Yes, ma'am!" she shouted back, waving. We ducked into Fleur's mom's car. It went a bit like this. We got to the concert, which was actually a kind of carnival, and we joined the screaming mass of fans. I got claustrophobic, so Fleur fished me out and we went around the fair. She bought me a funnel cake, and I returned the favour by buying her a stick of cotton candy.

We found the trash and treasure stall, and she immediately grabbed a couple of old-looking things. I found a wolf charm on a leather cord, an eagle brooch, a beaded hair pin and a fluffy plush fox. I bought them for my other flock members. We played a couple of the games, and I won two plushies: a fluffy brown owl for Bobby, and a whimsical green and yellow dragon for Fleur. She squealed and pecked me on the cheek. I coloured and butterflies whirred madly in my stomach. Fleur whipped out a camera, and we snapped photos everywhere. We spent the night running around, stuffing our faces and screaming at the tops of our voices to the tribute band. It was late when we finally exhausted ourselves, about eleven.

I collapsed onto the soft, cool grass behind one of the carnival tents. Fleur flopped down next to me, catching her breath.

"Ow. Too much laughing," she gasped, hugging her abdomen. I grinned.

"Yeah. Definitely," I agreed. She closed her eyes, turning her face to the light of the moon. The soft silvery light gilded her features, glowing. I traced the line of her nose and jaw with my eyes. The soft contours were unlike anything I'd ever seen before. She wasn't like Eila, scarred and strong; nor did she have Rhaksha's fiery, untamed exoticism. But still, there was that untouched innocence that few other girls seemed to have, her fierce intelligence yet fun-loving, carefree personality.

Fleur opened her dark eyes and looked at me intently.

"Felix?" she asked softly.

"Mm?"

Without warning, she slipped her arms around my neck and kissed me. I tilted my head, tasting the sweetness of the cotton candy on her lips, and slipped my hands around her waist. Her hands came to rest just over where my wings sat. My arms settled around the curve of her waist, over two parallel ridges where...

We both froze at the same time.


	15. Chapter 15

We broke apart, breathing hard. I stared into Fleur's eyes and she stared back at me. The open, innocent look in her eyes had disappeared. Instead, replacing it, was suspicion, shock, and fear. Fleur abruptly disentangled herself from our mutual embrace. She got to her feet and walked a couple of steps away from me. She shivered and rubbed her arms, looking everywhere but at me.

"I haven't been entirely honest with you," she said, looking to the ground. She shut her eyes tightly and frowned.

"Yeah, 'not entirely honest' doesn't cover it. Is your name even really Fleur?" I said, sounding harsher than I originally intended to. Fleur flinched. I winced and immediately felt so, so bad.

"Yeah," she said, sounding small and vulnerable. I flinched again. She opened her eyes, lips pressed together tightly. Her tone was bitter. "So, tell me. Are you here just to lure me in, get me to trust you, then bump me off for the school? Are you here for another reason, and think that playing around with me would be fun?"

"Fleur," I pleaded. "Fleur, please, just look at me."

She averted her eyes, and crossed her arms defensively. I crossed the distance between us and placed my hand on her arm. Her bottom lip wobbled, but she bit it viciously.

"Fleur," I said gently. "I would never do that to you."

She whimpered, and turn to run. I caught her wrist, and Fleur hesitated, before whirling and crashing into me. She buried her face in my shirt, and I wrapped my arms around her, stroking her hair softly.

"Why should I believe you?" she asked. "Why?"

"Because I'm like you, Fleur, just like you," I whispered.

Fleur looked up at me with her huge, dark eyes. I felt like she was looking through everything I'd ever been or done. Like she was searching me, seeing if I really meant it.

"My name is Fleur. I'm sixteen, and an avian human recombinant," she whispered.

I smiled a little. "My name is Griffin. I'm sixteen, and an avian human."

"Oh," she breathed. "Well, that changes things."

I leaned down to kiss her again.

* * *

Via finished straightening her freshly bleached and dyed golden blonde hair, setting the straightening iron down next to the sink. She picked up the one green contact she needed to place over her gold eye, and inserted it carefully, before popping on some lipgloss and fixing the way her skirt sat. Via examined the side of her face where the moulded latex mask adhered to her face, checking that the join was smooth. If it weren't for the Nicaraguan's presence, she wouldn't have needed such an elaborate get-up. Via sighed and unscrewed the lid of her loose powder, dusting it on and watching her team-mate in the mirror. Matahzi was already done, sitting out in the cheap hotel room and admiring herself in the mirror inside her Elizabeth Arden blush compact.

Via almost snarled at the thought of the other was so damn_ perfect_, it made her want to puke.

The shiny silver charm bracelet tinkled around her wrist, a reminder of her purpose. The device was loaded with pheromones designed to attract the albino leader of the flock, while Matahzi had a gold bracelet made for the sole purpose of making her attractive to the copy of Tred. Via exited the bathroom and looked to Matahzi. She smiled sweetly, ingratiatingly almost, but Via knew the other girl was merely mocking her.

True, they'd put her in charge. Via knew Matahzi wanted that position on this mission. She pressed her lips together and wrenched open the joining door to the single suite connected to theirs.

"Hurry up," she called harshly. The figure in the dimly lit room turned, and his pale face was blank, his grey eyes fogged, but white-tipped black hair was messy, as if he had just awoken from a long slumber.

"Who... are you?" he whispered. Via cursed. She stomped over to her suitcase and unzipped the Kevlar case concealed in the false bottom. She loaded a fresh syringe with the liquid drug in one of the many vials, and went into the other room. She grabbed the boy's hair with one hand and jabbed the needle into his neck, pushing the plunger down until the syringe was emptied. The foggy look in in his eyes intensified as a low moan of pain and confusion dropped from his lips. Suddenly, his eyes cleared and he shook his head.

"Hello," he said pleasantly, but his malicious grin betrayed his true emotions. Via grinned back.

"Ready to rip some birdkids apart?" she asked. His grin intensified, but a brief look of panic flashed in his eyes. That was quickly quenched with pure bloodlust. Via clipped the sliver chain around his wrist and the boy slimed down at her as he stood.

"Oh, I've been waiting for this," he hissed.

Via smiled. The personality override drug was working its magic yet again.

* * *

Kichiro sighed and shut his locker, staring at the maths books in his other hand. He leaned his head on the cool metal and sighed again, trying to force himself to focus. Sadly, focusing just didn't work when all he could think about was _Eila, Eila, Eila_. He shoved the books into his bag and slung it over his shoulder, struggling to remember where his next class was. Kichiro settled on simply going to the maths corridor and hoping for some miracle. Like Eila. He shook his head like a wet dog, trying to drive the disturbing thoughts out of his head.

Light footsteps clicked down the hallway from around the corner. Kichiro tensed, and slowly relaxed. He didn't know what was so reassuring, but he was sure it had to do with that _smell_. The warm and toasty, sweet as sugar, slightly flowery caramel scent tantalisingly filling his head with completely useless yet utterly satisfying romantic fantasies.

A slender hand came to rest on his arm, and Kichiro turned around slowly to see who'd approached him. It was the new girl, the dark haired, dark-eyed, tanned one; holding her flowered schoolbag with an almost imperceptible girlish charm. The scent rolled of her skin, fogging his mind and erasing his frustration and confusion. Something vaguely registered that this was not normal, but the hazy cloud of happiness muted the alarm bells that would have normally set him running.

"Hi," she said, glancing up at Kichiro through her thick lashes. Her full, red lips curled up into a small smile, and Kichiro blinked.

"My name is Caralina," she said shyly. Kichiro gulped, trying to collect himself through the foggy haze of what ever he was feeling... She giggled.

"Um, I'm Aether," he said, voice unsure.

"Oh?" she asked, stepping closer toward Kichiro and batting her eyelashes flirtatiously.

Before he knew what was happening, Caralina had shoved him up against the lockers and was kissing him like her life depended on it. The flowered schoolbag lay discarded against the other wall as Caralina twined her fingers into his hair and tilted her head so she could kiss him better.

And you know what?

Kichiro didn't care. In fact, he damn well liked it.


	16. Chapter 16

"And tell me sincerely," Fleur growled, slamming her hand down on the kitchen bench, "did you not even look at the other files?"

"But it's just a whole heap of static and dots!" I exclaimed. Fleur sighed, and waved the USB in my face.

"And what about this?" she asked. "Huh? Huh? Did you even think to stick it into a USB port and open the damn freaking file?"

"I would, if I knew what a USB port was," I pointed out awkwardly. Fleur blinked at me and rested her face in her palms.

"This is harder than it looks," she muttered. I raised my eyebrow.

"Damn straight, girl," Rhaksha said, walking in. "About the dimwit, here... the less said the better."

Kichiro all but floated in, this dazed happy grin on his face. Normally, Kichiro wasn't much of a smiler, so it was _completely unnerving_ to see him in a perpetually grinning, fogged up state. On top of that, he would not shut up. He kept going on and on and on about this one girl who was so great, and wonderful and beautiful and lovely. And guess what? He wasn't talking about Eila. One day he's brooding over something, and the next, all he thinks about is this Caralina girl.

One hand clutched his folder and Kichiro drifted out to the piano room. Anne had, like, fully paid for piano lessons for my Asian brother-figure, and paid for Eila's kendo! Kendo, I tell you!

A flowery, fluffy waltz started up and I winced. Fleur 'stopped in midair', as our androgynous science teacher liked to say, hand poised in front of my nose.

"Uh..." Fleur said, jaw slack. "Is this a normal occurrence?"

I shook my head, open mouthed myself.

* * *

Rhaksha peered past the curtain of hair hanging past the right side of her face. The boy sitting at the desk next to hers shifted, and she directed her eyes to the blank page in front of her. Tapping her pen against her lips, she tucked her hair behind her ear and absently and focused on her page.

The boy shook his gorgeous, ever-so-slightly ruffled hair. The tips of his hair were shockingly white against the black of the rest of his hair. He scribbled something and the clock ticked softly in the background. Rhaksha couldn't pull up anything. They were supposed to begin and complete a novella of a sort by the end of the semester.

_My name is Rhaksha. These words I'm writing... _

She paused, weighing up the risk. There was no way anyone would ever believe their story if she wrote it down, and she could easily dismiss it as a fictitious portrayal of her family if anyone asked. Rhaksha put her pen to the paper again.

_It's worth the risk, to tell you my secrets. Our secrets. There are six of us. Our leader, Griffin; Eila, second in command. Kichiro, the darkest angel; Mist, the face of innocence; Bobby, wise beyond his years. And myself, the force of fire._

_This is our story._

_

* * *

_

Whisper ran his hand through his hair and glanced at the girl beside him out of the corner of his eye. She was drop-dead gorgeous in every way. Wavy black hair cascaded over her slim shoulders, perfectly attuned to her glowing golden skin and inky lashes. She tapped her pen against her full, red lips, green eyes focused on the page in front of her. Her smooth, sculpted brows furrowed and arched as the began to write.

A mild throbbing started over his right eye, and Whisper tried to ignore it. The throbbing ache grew. He instead redirected his attention to his mission. He was here for one purpose, and that one purpose was to destroy the girl beside him.

* * *

Eila slunk through the corridor, keeping just out of sight of the two figures arm in arm. Kichiro said something, and the girl giggled. He joined in with her laughter and Eila tensed, shoulders set stiffly. Her blood boiled and she scowled darkly. Eila didn't know why she so was hypersensitive to anything even remotely related to Kichiro. The one thing she did know was that something was terribly, horribly wrong.

She moved closer as theypaused , and she caught the barest whiff of something. It was a sweet, sickly, cloying smell, something that set her teeth on edge and made her feel unbearably territorial. She wanted to leap right at that Caralina girl, tackled her to the ground, and rip her throat out. Eila clamped down on her bottom lip with her teeth and silently exited the hallway.

She didn't need homicide charges laid against her.

Eila forced herself to stay impassive when Kichiro brought Caralina to their table at lunch. The girl's gold charm bracelet tinkled prettily as she placed her tray on the table. She fiddled with one of the charms on her bracelet, the nearly opaque glass heart set in a gold frame. The other charms tinkled merrily and Kichiro seemed to descend even further into his happy stupor.

A fresh wave of the stench was released, and Eila did her best not to choke on her mystery meat. She coughed and Griffin slapped her on the back.

"Something in the meat," she choked, eyes watering. Griffin looked alarmed.

She exited, pointing to the bathroom. She slammed the door shut and slapped water on her face. She stared into her own eyes in the mirror, hands clenching the bench top. She had to get her hands on that bracelet.

She had just the plan.

* * *

Whisper smiled at the girl, Selene, and she stopped, expression almost concealing her surprise. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights, eyebrows arched, lush lips slightly parted, green eyes widened. Whisper liked that look. He liked it a lot. He could envision her wearing the same expression of shock when he tore her apart, piece by piece.

The throbbing in his head returned and intensified. He did his best to ignore it, but it felt like something was pounding against his skull, trying madly to break free. He approached the girl and smiled at her again.

"Hi," he said, trying to sound as nice as possible. His head throbbed. "I'm Kellen."

"Oh," she mumbled. "I'm Selene."

The bell signalling the end of third period rang, and Whisper's headache spiked.

"What do you have next?" he asked.

"Science," she said blandly. Whisper smiled, gathering his books.

"Me too," he said. They proceeded out into the corridor, passing one of the many student noticeboards advertising the Midsummer Ball.

He Paused and held her wrist just before they proceeded into the class. He shifted from foot to foot, trying to seem nervous.

"Um, I know that this is sort of sudden and all, but," he gabbled, "will you go to the Midsummer Ball with me?"

Selene looked at him in shock, and nodded stiffly. "Um, alright."

Whisper grinned despite his headache.

_Got her hook, line and sinker. _

_Too. Easy._


	17. Chapter 17

Rhaksha flopped on her bed, dumbfounded. The new guy, the one that had arrived a the same time as the dreaded Caralina, had just asked her to the asked her to the Midsummer Ball. Rhaksha stared at the ceiling, stomach doing nervous flip-flops.

Sure, she shouldn't have agreed right off the bat. She hardly knew Kellen, and all. She wasn't sure if she could trust him. But still... he was so adorably _nervous_, and he was so drop-dead that she couldn't resist. And he was so nice about it, she couldn't see a way out that wouldn't hurt his feelings.

Eila nearly put her fist through the wall when Rhaksha told her about it, and Fleur (now a near constant fixture at the house) sputtered and gagged. Anne squealed and gasped with glee.

"Oh my gosh!" Anne screamed. "This is so great! We totally have to go shopping for your dress!"

Rhaksha had no response to that. Eila blinked and vacated the room. Fleur pretended to remember that her mom wanted her home early that day. Making a decision in interests of self preservation, Rhaksha feigned the need to go to the bathroom.

Anne bounced to the living room like some sort of freakish grown-up child trapped in a twisted, extended childhood. Rhaksha shuddered and took refuge in Eila's room. Fleur crept in through the window and the three avian girls sat in a circle on the floor.

"Guys," Eila began, "do you get bad vibes off Caralina?"

"Uh, how could I not?" Fleur asked. "She's hanging all over Kichiro like he's a freaking life preserver and she's stranded in the middle of the Pacific."

"Yeah, and the other one, the green eyed blonde, the one who's always going after Griffin?" Rhaksha added. "She frankly gives me the bejeebers."

"Okay, so I have this theory. You ever notice the gold bracelet that she wears? And the sickly sweet smell?" Eila asked, leaning forward and quieting her voice. Fleur's eyebrows furrowed, and she nodded slightly.

"If you pay attention, every time she fiddles with her bracelet, the smell seems to intensify, right?" Again, Fleur nodded. Rhaksha listened with an intent expression.

"Well, I think..."

* * *

Rhaksha put the final finishing touches on their poster. The thing was mounted on black card, and printed in neat, well formed letters. That was Kellen's doing. Rhaksha couldn't write neatly worth crap. Kellen smiled at her from behind his bangs and Rhaksha smiled back.

They had nearly every single class together. Kellen was so _nice_, Rhaksha couldn't help but gravitate toward him. He calmly accepted everything that came his way, not like Eila or Kichiro or Griffin, who'd have apoplexies if anyone so much as looked at them wrong. Kellen wasn't just nice, but he was gentlemanly and treated her like no other guy had ever treated her before. It wasn't as if Rhaksha was some ivory skinned, primped and preened cream puff. It was just really nice. So, she reasoned, someone so _nice_ was okay to befriend, right?

The last bell of the day rang and Rhaksha packed up her pencil case. She dropped it into her backpack with a light thud, and got up quickly. Kellen gave her an inquiring glance.

"Anne wants to take me'n Flor dress shopping. The horror," she said dryly. Kellen coughed and tried to hide his chuckles. Rhaksha rolled her eyes. She strode to the front courtyard where Griffin waved her over impatiently. Kichiro (still in a foggy haze of either magic mushrooms or Caralina) jerked his head in the general direction of Anne's waiting Suburban, and Rhaksha joined the rest of the flock.

She gasped in horror when Anne showed her a black dress almost completely devoid of a back panel. All that would keep it in place was thin satin ribbon laced through eyelets at the edges of the less than complete bodice. Anne grinned and purchased it anyway, promising to reveal some epic secret that would allow Rhaksha to wear the dress without inciting _Mass Civilian Panic_.

God forbid.

Anne selected a midnight blue dress with a crossover front and spaghetti straps for Eila, without so much as an inquisitorial, "How about this?", in Eila's direction. Really, it was like Anne was shopping for her own Midsummer (more like mid-Fall) Ball.

The other pieces fell into place. The gap between the present and the Midsummer Ball grew smaller and smaller. Anne practised using special-issue FBI latex skin on Eila and Rhaksha. Eila refined her plan more and more, while Fleur brewed the solution that would be integral to their careful plot. Rhaksha practised her acting.

The night arrived. Eila relaced her boots as they sat in the Rolls Royce Anne had rented, and Rhaksha checked that the latex skin was smoothly joined with her real flesh. She picked up her black clutch and brushed her hair over her shoulder. The girls got out, and Kichiro (without Caralina, for once) and Griffin followed them. Fleur met them at the entrance, and she nodded ever so slightly at Eila.

Eila grinned wolfishly.

"Showtime."


	18. Chapter 18

Eila and Fleur drifted toward the snack table, spotting the huge bowl of red punch that they were looking for. Fleur discretely emptied a tiny vial into the punch, and stirred the red liquid as if meaning to grab a drink and pour it into one of the plastic cups stacked alongside the bowl. She stepped away with an expression of disinterest. Eila took to standing in the corner with her, waiting for someone to ask her to dance. Fleur joined her and whispered to her.

"I put the super concentrate vodka in the punch. Just tell the others not to drink it we'll be fine," she muttered. Griffin joined the two and grabbed Fleur's wrist, nearly dragging her onto the dance floor. She whispered something in his ear, and giggled. Griffin chuckled, but Eila had no doubt that she was warning him about the punch.

More people poured in and a bus-load went immediately for the punch. The effects were almost instantaneous. One drunk human turned up the volume on the speakers, and the rhythmic beat blared out even more strongly. It was loud enough for Eila to feel the vibrations through her feet. The more people drank the punch, the more uninhibited they became. The dance floor grew more and more crowded, and Rhaksha took her cue when a wobbling Caralina entered the mass of bodies. Eila entered the crush and zeroed in on Caralina. She was giggling madly and dancing wildly. Her flailing hand nearly caught Rhaksha in the face, and Fleur pretended to trip onto Caralina. The other girls staggered and her arms windmilled.

Rhaksha caught her by the arm without the bracelet as Fleur's eyes widened realistically.

"Oh my gosh, I am so, so, sorry!" she said, gasping like a fish out of water. "I didn't see, and I tripped over someone's foot, and did I tell you that I'm so, so sorry? I really, really, am, and I couldn't see-"

Fleur continued to gush as Eila fiddled the bracelet clasp free. Caralina seemed to be occupied, gaping and gushing in reply to Fleur's apologies. The gold bracelet came free in her hand and Rhaksha and Eila backed off. Fleur finished up and melted back into the crowd.

Eila slunk off to the bathroom, and Fleur slipped back to join Griffin. Rhaksha disappeared like smoke, one of her many dubious talents. Eila shut the door behind her softly, and heard retching in the toilet. She raised one eyebrow as she set her purse on the table. She brought the bracelet up to the light, and immediately the sickly sweet stench slapped her in the face. She scrutinised the glass charm, and in the harsh lighting. She could see that, if she moved the bracelet, there seemed to be some sort of _liquid_ in the glass charm.

She squinted at it again, and searched for the word... She had it. She didn't know why she hadn't thought of it before. _Pheromones_.

Eila slipped the bracelet into her clutch and stepped back outside.

* * *

Rhaksha let the cool air soothe her skin. The cool autumn night was a relief; Rhaksha gratefully breathed in. The crush of bodies inside had been frightening, like there wasn't enough air and she was slowly but surely suffocating. A gentle hand came to rest on her shoulder, and Rhaksha jumped. She whirled, and quickly relaxed. It was just Kellen. He smiled at her and slipped his arm around her waist, guiding her back inside. The fluourescent strip lights in the corridor were bright, and the linoleum flooring reminded Rhaksha eerily of the School.

Kellen guided her down an empty corridor and slipped his other arm around her waist. Rhaksha turned and Kellen smiled nastily. Rhaksha tensed, and her survival instincts kicked in. Soemthing was very, very wrong, and she hand't seen it until now.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid!_

Kellen's grip tightened and on hand flew up to catch her wrist. The expression of malice grew on his pale face as he swiftly flipped Rhaksha around and placed his arm around her neck in a choke hold. Rhaksha panicked, and he pressed his forearm against her neck, cutting off her supply of oxygen.

Kellen leaned down and whispered in her ear.

"Bye bye, beautiful," he hissed. Time accelerated.

A white hot explosion of agony burst inside his head, and Rhaksha struggled from Kellen's grasp as he sank to his knees, panting and struggling not to scream, Rhaksha went into a defensive stance, glaring at the boy. Blood trickled from his nostrils as he whimpered, clutching his head.

Kellen uncurled from his position, shivering and Rhaksha tensed, ready. He looked up at her, and Rhaksha did a double take. Kellen's eyes flicked around, and he edged up against the lockers, looking panicked. His eyes were full of unadulterated terror, like she was some sort demon or monster or something.

"And what exactly might you be, _Kellen_?" she spat, glaring at the other boy. A fluttering of unease shifted in her stomach. The boy's eyes widened, and his breathing came in short pants.

"That's right. Be scared," she growled.

"My name is Whisper, and you can't call me Experiment X39," he said, voice shaking. Bewildered, his eyes flicked to any available exits. Rhaksha advanced, and he shivered again, looking at the ground. "Who are you? I'm not going back, please, just let me go!"

"Go where," she hissed.

"You can't take me back to the School," he whispered, looking to the ground. Rhaksha stiffened.

"Oh, well," she said. Rhaksha saw no alternative. In two swift steps she crossed the void between them and rendered Whisper unconscious.

She hoped no-one would find her latest mutant discovery, and went in search of Eila and Griffin. They'd know what to do.

* * *

Via slammed her hand down on the Formica table int heir motel room. Matazhi was puking her guts up in the bathroom, X39 was AWOL and her bracelet wasn't working on the albino. She growled and picked up the mobile phone on the countertop, dialing the number she'd been given in case of emergency.

"The plan is a bust," she growled. "Call in the back-up."


	19. Chapter 19

**Griffin**

Eila and I hefted the unconscious mutant onto our couch. He groaned and curled up into a tight little ball. Rhaksha looked uncertainly in his direction, wringing her hands awkwardly. Kichiro rubbed his head and blinked in a confused manner.

"I can't remember anything," he complained. "What just happened? Why am I wearing this ridiculous penguin suit? And whose lipgloss is on my cheek?"

Eila grabbed Kichiro's wrist and towed him out of the room while I dealt with Rhaksha and the unknown mutant. The unknown was coming to, and I told Mist (who was watching in morbid fascination) to go get Bobby.

Rhaksha scrutinised the mutant as he sat up, and I zeroed in on him. He bolted to his feet, head whipping back and forth as he did the automatic exit scan that I was so used to doing.

"Who are you?" he asked, sounding sincerely terrified out of his mind.

"Who are you?" I shot back. He looked at the floor, muttering something. If I strained my hearing, I could barely make out what he was saying.

"I am not X39, I am not X39, I am not X39," he whispered desperately, staring at his feet.

"Oh, come on. Not another pysch-case," Rhaksha moaned. I glared at her.

"Shut it," I hissed. I turned back to X39 and Bobby trotted in. I motioned at the other guy and Bobby went over.

"Hi," Bobby greeted, and latched onto X39's arm. His eyes unfocused, and Bobby bit his lips as tears formed in his eyes. X39 shuddered and recoiled away from Bobby, but was unable to break free from his hold. X39 flinched and a tear slid over one of his pale cheeks. Bobby gasped and broke his hold, shivering. He buried his face in Mist's shirt, narrow shoulders shaking.

"Is he clean?" I asked, my tone businesslike. Bobby looked at me and nodded.

"Oh, okay," I said. I approached X39. "I'm Griffin. I'm the leader of this flock. D'you wanna join?"

X39 at me, and nodded slowly. "My name is Whisper."

I grinned. "Yo, if you want, you can stay with us for the night. I mean, I could lend you some pyjamas, and you can have my bed and I'll sleep on the couch and stuff."

He looked bewildered. "For real?"

"Yeah," I said in a _duh _tone of voice. "Come on. I'll show you where the bathroom is."

* * *

"Eila, what is going on?" Kichiro asked, clearly confused. Eila ignored him and fished in her clutch for that one object that she needed. She had a theory, and she needed to test it out. She finally found the bracelet, and fastened it around her wrist before tucked her hand behind her back.

"Do you remember anything of the last couple of weeks?" she asked. Kichiro shook his head. "Do you remember Caralina?"

Again, Eila was met with confusion and lack of recognition. She brought the bracelet out from behind her back.

"Remember this?"

In a few seconds, Kichiro had stepped up to her, slipped his arms around her waist and placed his lips against hers, so soft and warm and sweet against hers. Eila froze, hands resting against his chest as if deciding whether or not to push him off. Kichiro broke off the kiss, and Eila undid the catch of the bracelet, slipping it back into her bag. The foggy, happy look had returned to his eyes, but that was rapidly clearing as confusion and mortification replaced it.

Kichiro immediately disentangled himself from Eila, blushing crimson. He shifted uneasily and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Oh, God, I am really, really sorry," he blurted, tripping over his words. "I dunno what that was, but I didn't mean it and if that offended you or anything I really didn't know what just happened, and oh, God, I remember _everything _now-"

Eila placed her finger gently on his lips.

"It's okay," she said simply. She was screaming inside. She would never have admitted it, but the tiny niggling voice in the back of her head had kicked into overdrive.

_Okay? That's the best you can come up with? Face it, you enjoyed that! It was more than okay, more than freaking okay!_

"That just proved the theory I had," she said, a more serious tone overcoming her. "Caralina's bracelet is loaded with what's probably liquid pheromones. So...yeah."

Eila looked away uncomfortably. A silence settled between them,

"Um, thanks," Kichiro finally said. "Thanks for... caring."

Eila looked up and allowed herself a tiny smile. "It's okay."

With that, she left, leaving Kichiro alone with a dazed smile on his face.

But this time, it was one hundred percent pheromone free.

* * *

Anne clicked the red cross in the top corner of the window. She hissed under her breath as she read the message Velasquez had sent her. Apparently, of the three operatives Itex had set up to snag the six mutants, one was sleeping on her couch with his real personality intact, one had been inebriated and lost her pheromone bracelet, and the other's pheromone bracelet 'didn't work'.

Anne furiously typed and pulled up several files. She swore mentally. She'd recognised Fleur, but she hadn't known from where! Turns out, harmless, helpful, smart-bordering-on-nerdy Fleur was Experiment Fh289tWF. Anne already knew that 'Felix' was experiment Gr1x0328. She couldn't believe she hadn't seen it before!

Fh289tWF and Gr1x0328 had been identified as having _Attribute Attuned Complex: Number_ _Seven_, or what the lower level scientists liked to call 'Perfect Other Half' Complex. Perfect matches had been known to make unshakable teams, and pheromones didn't work on them. That was why Via couldn't even get Felix to look in her direction, no matter how much pheromone she used.

Anne growled and grabbed her phone from beside the laptop.

"Velasquez," she hissed. "Get me the Director!"

* * *

Fleur straightened her school jacket and stepped into the reception. The woman at the desk waved her into the principal's office, and she swallowed. She swore mentally. Could it be that someone had seen her spiking the punch and had dobbed her in?

Fleur quietly opened the door and stood in front of Principal Pruitt's teak desk. His name was etched on the gold plaque seated obnoxiously smack bang centre front on the desk. Pruitt's high-backed leather chair was turned away from her. It turned, and Fleur's mounting unease turned into flat-out survival mode overdrive. The man's dark pink, disgustingly wet lips were pulled up over prominent teeth in an ugly imitation of a snarl. The remains of the hair on his predominantly bald head bristled; Pruitt's eyes narrowed at her.

Pruitt was pointing a Taser at her, and he looked like he fully intended to use it.


	20. Chapter 20

Pruitt advanced on her, smirking nastily.

"You are going _nowhere. _I'll take you down," he snarled in his thick British accent. "You will be my prize for all they days I have had to put up with you ignorant, pestilent, dirty, disrespectful, spoilt little brats! I'll-"

"Pestilent? Is that the best you can do?" she snarled, leaping over the table.

Fleur dodged as Pruitt pressed the trigger on the compact electronic weapon. Pruitt waved his walking stick at her, and she bent back just as a spring-loaded blade popped out of the bottom of the cane. She circumvented the desk and snapped her leg out in a vicious roundhouse aiming for Pruitt's head. He dodged it, barely, and Fleur changed tactics. She punched his flabby gut twice in quick succession, then jumped and planted one foot on his chest, pushing him back and hopefully knocking the air out of him. For good measure, she kicked him where no human male should be kicked.

Fleur raced out of the office and quickly disarmed the receptionist with a roundhouse to the head and a low leg sweep. She fled down the corridor, shedding her jacket and grabbing a tennis racquet off a startled fifth-grader. She banged against the lockers, putting up a hell of a racket and screaming ath the top of her voice.

"GRIFFIN! EILA! KICHIRO! RHAKSHA! MIST! BOBBY! WHISPER!" she yelled, feet pounding against the linoleum flooring. She snuck a quick glance behind her, and swore nastily. Not only was Pruitt and the receptionist tailing her, but so were a few other teachers and a hell of a lot of Erasers.

She shook her head and pushed herself even faster.

* * *

Kichiro heard the awful banging on the lockers and his head snapped around to the source of the noise. With his super-enhanced mutant hearing, he could hear Fleur screaming the flock's names. Caralina's attention snapped around and Kichiro glanced at the other mutant. Caralina fixed her gaze on him and leapt, baring elongated fangs. Kichiro dodged and grabbed an empty chair, hurling it at the mutant with as much force as he could muster.

The girl's eyes widened and she couldn't dodge in time. Caralina was carried a couple of feet by the flying chair, but she recovered freakishly fast and aimed a roundhouse kick at Kichiro. He caught her foot and flipped her over his shoulder, into the racks of encyclopaedias and dictionaries. Caralina screeched in anger, and claws extended from her fingers.

Worse still, the teacher brought out a Taser, which she aimed directly at Kichiro. Thinking fast, he leapt in front of Caralina and ducked as the flying Taser-bolt missed his head by a few inches, instead, hitting Caralina. She screamed and collapse, and Kichiro took the opportunity to pick up another chair and throw it at the teacher.

Kichiro decided enough chairs were enough chairs. He made a quick escape from the classroom, slamming down the fire alarm next to the door.

Mist was in the middle of Gym on the football pitch when two things happened. First, alarms started going off in the main building of the school. Secondly, a bunch of male models barrelled out of the Gym doors, shaking water from their hair and chasing Fleur like crazy.

Mist glanced at the javelin in her hand, and shrugged. With as scary a battle cry as she could manage, she hurled the javelin, spearing one of the Erasers through the gut. It howled and the others began to morph out, muzzles and fangs elongating grotesquely. Mist grabbed another javelin as a screaming girl dropped it and rang for all she was worth. Mist hurled it at Principal Pruitt's Taser-wielding hand, breaking his wrist and sending his Taser clattering to the ground. Fleur turned on her heel, snatched it off the ground and Tasered the closest wolf-man.

Fleur swore when she saw that it had no effect. She tucked the Taser into her pocket and grabbed a javelin, spearing another Eraser and sending him staggering into his compatriots. Mist grabbed a couple more javelins and pelted them off in quick succession, killing a couple more Erasers. Then, she turned and ran with Fleur, who was already shooting off as fast as her legs would carry her.

Mist hissed and a lightning bolt struck out somewhere behind her, to startled yelps and howls. There was also a loud sizzling noise and angered yowling.

Much better.

* * *

The second Rhaksha heard the screaming and banging and zapping, she bolted upright and dragged Whisper to his feet.

"And just where d'yall think y'alls are all goin'?" the teacher exclaimed in her thick, thick Southern Accent. She dug a Taser out of her desk drawer and fired it at Whisper. Whisper shut his eyes and the probes carrying the wire went right through him, like he was a ghost. Rhaksha's eyes widened as Whisper opened his smoke grey eyes.

"Whisper!" Rhaksha shouted. Whisper turned his emotionless stare on the teacher, who gasped and looked horrified as the Taser probes fizzled uselessly on the ground. Whisper lunged and planted his fist in the teacher's flabby double chin. Her jowls wobbled and her head slammed against the whiteboard behind her. She landed a completely un-teacher-like double handed karate chop into Whisper's side, and he stumbled, gasping for air.

"Yo, flubber-face!" Rhaksha shouted. "Chew on this!"

The teacher turned and a bulky computer monitor from the previous century crashed into her face. The teacher screeched and hit the wall. Whisper struggled to his feet, leaning against the wall. That is, until someone picked him up by the back of his collar and threw him into the back wall. The jock who'd thrown him advanced and grabbed Whisper by the throat with one large hand. Another jock grabbed Rhaksha by the arms to stop her from attacking the guy who was currently in the process of strangling Whisper.

Rhaksha swore nastily and stomped on the guy's foot as hard as her mutant skills would allow. The dude screamed, hitting operatic soprano pitch, clutching his foot and hopping around like a madman. Rhaksha downed him with a roundhouse kick and two kicks to the head when he went down.

Whisper scrabbled at the hand of iron choking off his air supply, black fringing his vision, The guy leered at him, and Whisper kicked out, trying to weaken the grip of his assailant. Red and black spots shimmered across his vision, and his lungs were burning. There was a flash of orange and red, and the grip around his neck vanished. Whisper gulped in the air. A hand helped him to his feet, dragging him out of the classroom.

Rhaksha glanced back at Whisper.

"Are you okay?" she asked. He winced.

"I've had worse," he replied. Rhaksha looked back down the corridor, swearing profusely.

"Let's get outta here."

* * *

Eila and I covered each others' backs. I landed a flying kick into an Eraser's face as Eila grabbed a frying pan and bashed it into the back of one unwary lupine-mutant's head. It connected with a clang and the Eraser crumpled. I deftly slid two knives out of the drawer, spinning them and slashing at the Erasers with them. Eila sent food processor blades flying through the air with a flick of her wrist, and a couple more Erasers fell to the floor, incapacitated. I tossed my knives to Eila and grabbed two beefy cleavers.

Eila covered me while I broke down the door. We rushed out into the corridor, exploding out the front entrance. We were closely followed by the rest of the flock, wet and wielding javelins.

"Fly on!" I yelled, and I threw Bobby into the air. Eila and Mist did a running start, while Kichiro took of from a standing start. I launched myself into the air and checked if everyone was okay. A couple of armoured vans skidded into the parking lot, and Erasers poured out, half-morphed. They morphed out fully and climbed into the air, and I made my decision.

"Scatter! Through the woods!" I shouted, and the flock scattered in random formation, dive-bombing into the woods as the Erasers pursued us.

I lost track of the others as I slipped between the trees. I veered around in a wild arc and doubled back to throw them off, flyign nearly at a vertical between the trees. One of my secondaries snagged and ripped out, and I hissed in pain. Eila and Whisper drew up alongside me, and I could vaguely see Kichiro up ahead. Rhaksha and the kids were up above us in tight formation.

I glanced back quickly and burst out of the woods into open air. I rose sharply and circled, then heading to the bat-cave once I saw that there were no Erasers on my tail. Eila pointed back at the ground and Kichiro swore nastily. Whisper's eyes widened and Mist shouted.

"Griffin!" she said urgently, pointing at the ground. There were a mass of specks, and I strained my raptor vision so I could see what had everyone so riled up.

Oh, God. Oh, God, no, don't let this be happening.

They had Fleur.


	21. Chapter 21

"_No_!" I shouted, tucking my wings in and plummeting to reach her. _No, no, no!_ Fleur turned her beautiful eyes to me, and they were widened with fear. Her captors dragged her roughly to one of the armoured cars that they'd arrived in and I could hear her screaming from this altitude. Eila shouted at me from above. I couldn't hear her words. All I could hear was the screaming wind.

"Fleur!"

"Griffin!" she screamed back. She furiously wrenched her arm out of the Eraser's grasp, and she struck the Eraser in the face, running for a take-off. More Erasers leapt and pounced at her, tackling her to the ground. I gaped in horror.

"Run!" she shouted. "RUN, GRIFFIN!"

"Not without you," I muttered, pulling up from my dive and crashing into an Eraser feet first. Twin missiles streaked into the mass of wolf-men, and I barely registered at Kichiro and Eila had my back. Wolf-men surrounded me on all sides. I lunged and hit one in the nose, sending it crashing back into its cohorts. I roundhoused another, and one particularly scarred Eraser landed a punch in my ribs. I heard something crack, and I gasped. I staggered to my feet, but they pulled me down again. I heard Eila cry out and Kichiro snarling.

The hammer of a gun cocking brought us all to a standstill. The Erasers parted like the Red Sea and my breathing hitched in my throat.

An arm was wrapped around Fleur's slender neck, and the ugly black muzzle of an Uzi was pressed into the side of her head. Fleur's captor chuckled humourlessly.

"Anne," Kichiro snarled. Anne's lips curled into a malicious smile as she narrowed her eyes at us.

"Don't anybody move. So much as twitch and your darling flock-mate's brains will be splattered all over the floor before you can do anything," she hissed.

"Now, put your hands on your head," Anne said, "slowly. No sudden moves."

"Anne..." Eila pleaded. "Anne, I thought, I thought... I thought you were on our side!"

Anne cackled. "Oh, please. Me, on your side? When I'm getting paid perfectly well as is and getting to be a part of the greatest scientific revolution to occur in this century and probably centuries to come?"

Anne let out a bark of hysterical laughter.

"You're all miracles," she said, a sick type of glee/admiration entering her eyes. Fleur met my eyes. I couldn't stand it, seeing her so vulnerable, so frightened. Dread knotted in the pit of my stomach, and I met her eyes again.

They widened, and Fleur mouthed one word.

_Run_.

Everything exploded white.

* * *

My eyes stung uncomfortably as daylight burnt its red impression on the back of my eyelids. I lifted a hand to cover my eyes, unsteadily sitting up and kneeling before attempting to stand up. That failed miserably, but my eyes adjusted. I forced myself to open my eyes and I tried again to stand.

Everything came rushing back as Mist and Bobby shouted our names. I whirled and saw Kichiro and Eila, staggering to their feet. I checked them off my list, and I quickly scanned the area for Fleur, real, unadulterated fear blossoming in my chest.

I saw her then, hands pressed to her head, barely on her feet. I saw her crumple, and she descended to join the bodies littering the floor. Time seemed to flow slower and slower, and I ran to catch her before her body hit the floor and I shattered into a million pieces.

"Oh, God," I murmured, smoothing her hair away from her face. Her skin was cool to the touch, and she was covered in blood. Her head lolled to the side and I lifted her from the churned earth. I cradled her body and wrapped my arms around her, wishing that I could have protected her from the horror of this life.

One of the bodies surrounding us stirred and stood shakily. I lifted my eyes and glared witheringly at Anne.

"What have you done?" I shouted. "What have you done to her?"

"Nothing," Anne croaked. "Seems like she kept her an ability a secret from you! Spectral blast, keyed to kill Erasers specifically, engineered-"

Anne coughed, spitting blood and hunching over in pain. She put her hand over her throat, eyes bulging as she gasped for air, hacking up more blood. She screamed, and black fluid flooded from her eyes, ears, nose and mouth, eating away every part of her it touched.

Anne screamed and shook violently, spasming and thrashing. Her eyes were glazed black, and the black stuff ate away at her skin until bare bone came through one side of her face. The other half was drooped and distorted like melting wax, and most of the hair was eaten from her head. Anne's thrashing slowed and stilled, and she smiled with the half of her face that still remained.

"You killed her," I whispered hoarsely. "You killed her."

"Can't get rid of me that easy," a soft voice murmured. A bloody hand cupped my cheek, turning my face down, and Fleur smiled at me.

"Fleur," I whispered. Anne whimpered and screamed once until her limbs hit the cold earth with a thud. The black fluid had burned a hole through her, eating her from within. Anne's eyes stared at the sky, and her face was frozen in terror.

Fleur put her arms around me and buried her face in my neck.

"Don't leave me again," I said. "Never leave me again."

* * *

Kichiro tossed another branch into the fire, and we huddled around it. Whisper and Rhaksha leaned on each other, eyelids drooping shut. Bobby and Mist were curled together like ragged puppies, and Eila sat by them, stroking Bobby's fluffy strawberry blonde hair. We were all still crusted in blood, and again, on the run.

The crumpled remains of the Twinkie wrappers littered the ground, surrounding the empty cans of ravioli. Changing into the clean clothes from our emergency stash seemed futile; with the state we were in, basically nothing but a long, hot shower could cut through the grime covering us head to toe. We had about 4000 bucks, stolen from Anne's house over the course of our stay.

Rhaksha's eyes dropped shut, and Whisper soon followed, but his eyes jerked open again.

"What's to become of us?' he mumbled sleepily.

"We go back on the run. Stealing, running, surviving," I replied simply.

"Will we every be safe?" Mist whispered to Eila, eyes still shut. Eila smoothed back her blonde hair.

"We'll see," she said gazing into the fire.


	22. Chapter 22

_The thing about imminent death is that it snaps everything into perspective._

_Blackness. Brackish water, swirling, pressing in, crushing. Can't breathe, can't breathe, can't breathe. Bubbles stir the water. Thrash. Struggle. Don't breathe in. Screaming, crashing, and shouting. Out of the water, gasp in the air. Fear, fear, fear. _

_Dark eyes, small hands. Reaching out. Rosy lips set in a scream. Little girl, only thing ever loved. Sister. Likeness. Angel. Dead. They killed her. Where is she? What is heaven? Life means nothing. _

_Pain. _

_Furry hand, jagged claws raking skin. Bleed. Red, red of blood, red of new dawn, red tears, blood. Flooding, another night shattered. Sleep, a distant memory. What is real? What is not real? Injections, tests, the maze again. Electric shocks. Don't slow down. It burns, it burns, it burns. Want to die. Blinding lights. Glinting knives, cold steel. _

_Beg for death._

_Thud. Slide down the wall. Ugly maroon stains covering the tile floor. Kanine Kampers in orderly rows. Special testing today. Arms up, tied to the ceiling. Then the Coffin. Walls on all sides. No room to breathe. Scream. No air. Dying. _

_Knives. Shocks. Wires. Mazes. Water. Wind tunnel. Isolation. Confinement. Straightjacket._

_Can't breathe._

"Whisper! Whisper, wake up!" Rhaksha's voice was frantic over Whisper's hoarse screaming. Whisper whimpered and Eila put her hand on his shoulder only to get clipped in the face by a flying fist. She yelped and instinctively stepped backward, crashing into Kichiro, who in turn stumbled a few steps, pale blush almost hidden by the bad light.

"Whisper," Rhaksha shouted, "Wake up!"

Whisper shot into an upright position, breathing hard, disoriented and panicking.

"What did you do to her?" he shouted. "What did you do to my sister?"

Rhaksha took his hand and slowly wrapped her arms around him. Whisper froze, eyes wide, still not thinking clearly. Fleur stepped closer to me and pressed her lips together. Rhaksha lifted her hand to stroke Whisper's hair, murmuring soft words in his ear. Whisper rested his head on her shoulder, shaking.

"What happened to him to make him that unstable?" Fleur whispered.

I shook my head. "Knowing the school, I bet they were torturing him just for the fun of it. Probably killed the others one by one. Sounds like his sister was one of them."

She expressed her opinion by spitting on the ground and snarling.

Mist kicked another log in to the fire, looking furious.

"I can't believe them!" she shouted. "Why would they do this? They're all sick bastards, completely sick!"

Fleur and I both concurred with that assessment, and this time, both of us spat.

* * *

"Whisper," Rhaksha murmured. Whisper looked up, cheeks stained with tear tracks. His grey eyes looked so empty, so dead, and he sighed heavily, shoulders sagging. Rhaksha gently brushed away the dampness on his cheeks and smoothed his hair.

"Whisper, who was your sister?"

Whisper stiffened, and a tiny whimper escaped him. He looked at the ground.

Rhaksha placed on hand on his cheek, lifting his gaze from the ground. Whisper's eyes were to bright. Rhaksha bit her lips. Was she pushing it too far?  
"It's okay," she murmured. "If you're not ready..."

Whisper shook his head. "No. I just... Her name was Shiloh, and she was the only family I ever had."

He laughed bitterly. "She once had this Barbie doll that one of the nicer Erasers gave her. She always played with it in secret, and when I caught her out, she used to hide it behind her back. Told me she had to be a strong girl, and that strong girls didn't play dolls.

"When she said that, she always made me smile.

"Shiloh was always a terrible liar. She loved to hug. Didn't matter who, just that she was so loving and sweet. I never figured out where it came from, 'cause the School was so bare of kindness and love. She cared, for everyone.

"Our world was like glass, and one day the whitecoats shattered it. They took her away, and she never came back. I could hear her screaming, even down the corridor and through the doors."

Whisper stood up, and shouted, "She begged for them to stop! She was just a damn child, and they murdered her in cold blood!"

"I'm sorry," Rhaksha said softly. Whisper growled and punched the air in front of him.

"I don't want your pity!" he yelled.

Rhaksha shot up and grabbed his wrist in a blur of motion. Whisper's eyes fixed on her, and she stared back.

"I don't pity you," she snarled. Whisper looked to the ground.

"I lost it," he whispered. "I lost it completely. I hate them. I hate them, I hate them."

"Yeah?" Rhaksha challenged. "Is that what you really think?"

"Yeah," Whisper hissed.

"Then do something about it," Rhaksha said simply, releasing Whisper and turning on her heel. She melded into the shadows as she made her way back to the camp.

Whisper shut his eyes tightly.

_Do something about it_.

* * *

Rhaksha stepped into the circle of firelight, cursing her trademark lack of night-vision. That was Bobby's forte, and Griffin's. What the albino leader lacked in metaphysical, supernatural powers, he made up for in sheer skill, wit and tirelessness. Rhaksha sensed a stirring of unease in her stomach.

If she'd learned anything from living on the run for three years, it was to listen to her instincts. She scanned the clearing, eyes and ears alert for the tiniest sign of motion. The packs were upended and their contents were scattered from one side of the clearing to the other. Eila's windbreaker lay on the ground, slashed into tatters. Blood was splashed on the ground in tiny gleaming pools, black in the orange light of the fire. Not one, but half a dozen, trees surrounding the clearing had claw marks and craters from flying mutant fists.

Rhaksha swore.

Tred and his Erasers emerged from the shadows, each holding a flock member with a gun pointed at their heads.

Griffin's eye twitched.

"Well, this is pleasant," he commented sarcastically.

"Where's the other? Branch Director specifically requested the other mutant," Tred barked. He jerked his head in the direction of the forest surrounding them, and a team of Erasers fanned out, foraying into the forest. A faint yelp came from the area in which Rhaksha had left Whisper in. A couple more snarls and growls followed, trailed by a loud smack and a shout of pain. The Erasers came back, dragging Whisper by one arm and pushing him in the direction of the clearing. The other arm hung at an odd angle. Rhaksha had seem enough broken arms to know it was one of the sort.

The Erasers threw him to the ground, and Whisper landed hard on his broken arm. He bit back a scream of pain, a single tear threatening to spill over.

"Leave him alone!" Rhaksha shouted. Bobby glared at the Erasers, and Fleur spat at them. Tred strolled up to her, his long, high-collared coat streaming back, away from his body. Tred cocked his head and looked right at Rhaksha. His eyes narrowed and the corners of his mouth turned up in a malicious little smile.

"You're in no position to make demands," he purred. "I can't see you holding the gun, can I?"

He produced an Uzi and cocked it, flicking off the safety. Rhaksha tensed. Tred abruptly swung the gun in Whisper's direction.

"Load 'em into the humvee," he ordered.


	23. Chapter 23

**Griffin**

I slammed into the metal wall of the humvee with a resounding thud as the driver took a corner with insane lack of skill.

"Ow!" I complained. "Hey! You! I can drive better than you! Watch it on the corners!"

The Erasers in front barked wolfishly at the same time, and we could make out their flashing white canines through the darkened glass. I leaned back in surprise, hitting the doors and banging my head. I rubbed the sore spot with one hand as I made rude gestures with the other.

Kichiro pounded on the bulletproof glass separating us in the back from the Erasers driving. Bobby held onto a handhold in the floor as the car skidded wildly. Fleur swore and rubbed the side of her face as she banged into the wall next to me.

"Are you okay?" I asked her, placing one hand on her cheek. She nodded in affirmation and pecked me quickly on the cheek. I smiled slightly and Kichiro pounded extra loud to express his opinion about, you know, me and Fleur.

"Shut it!" we shouted. Bobby snorted. The car stopped abruptly and the door was yanked open. A sea of Erasers, mixed in with green-laser-eyed androids and Flyboys. They surrounded us in a barrier of living metal and flesh, barring our escape. I looked up, and swore mentally. The Vans were contained under what looked like a barbed wire grid canopy. An Eraser saw my glance, and chuckled nastily.

"Barbed wire, one hundred percent electrified," he spat at us, gloopy spittle flying.

"Say it, don't spray it," Fleur automatically reprimanded, hand perched on her hip and the other extended as if brandishing a wooden spoon. I chuckled, picturing her in a gingham apron and frilly headscarf, brandishing a spoon at a couple of mud-smeared flock-mates. Fleur boxed my ears. I yelped and rubbed them.

"None of your bunkum," she hissed, kicking me in the shin for good measure. I made a face.

"This is all very touching, joyous and charming," Kichiro drawled, "but we're in a tight spot, if you haven't already noticed."

"Yeah," Bobby supplied, a wonderfully indignant expression on his face. Two Erasers grabbed me by the arms, and propelled me forward, through the stinking mass of lupine-human recombinants.

"Hey, let up!" I snapped. "Bobby, Kichiro, Fleur!"

"Yes, boss!" Bobby yelled back.

"Okay back there!" I bellowed, seeing as they were out of my immediate line of sight. They hollered back, and I picked up Rhaksha swearing and yowling furiously, calling atrocious names. No, truly atrocious names. I can't repeat them. They'd incite mass public indignation and outrage.

We were dragged, kicked and eventually thrust into the white, antiseptic-y halls of the glorious Itex. They didn't immediately lead us to our comfy Kanine Kamper accommodation, but lead us into a huge, lavishly decorated gallery. The ceiling was painted with a mural of chubby, pink-cheeked cherubs resting on fluffy white clouds (much in the style of European palaces). The walls were equally decorated and trimmed with gold leaf and expensive looking woods carved in elegant patterns.

Twin rows of columns marched down the hall, alabaster decked in gilt and more paint. The floor was of costly-looking wood, laid in elaborate geometric patterns. A red carpet ran down the centre of the hall, leading to a raised, carpeted dais. A huge throne, decorated so as to fit the atmosphere of the room, stood upon it. At the back of the room, there were eight sets of iron shackles bolted to the walls.

The two Erasers restraining me slammed me against the wall, and my wings twinged painfully from where they were folded. Another Eraser fitted my ankle shackles and then the cuffs for my wrists, securing them with an inch wide strip of metal cut with a series of vertical and horizontal lines. The cuffs beeped electronically. I swore. The Eraser backhanded me across the face as his compatriots released their grasp. I crashed into the floor, and the coppery taste of blood exploded in my mouth. Split lip and bitten tongue. Great.

Kichiro hissed as they backed him into the wall. Eila spat at them. Mist glared icily. Fleur just looked at them as if they'd peed on her freshly mopped kitchen floor. It was an oddly scary expression. Shiver. The room dimmed significantly, and a light giggle echoed throughout the room. A spotlight centred in on the the throne, illuminating the small figure of a young girl. Dark hair shielded her face from our eyes. Her pale blue satin skirts puddled around her feet, and a red velvet cloak trimmed with fur cascaded over the armrests of the throne. A stiff, cylindrical Tudor bodice formed the upper part of her dress, encrusted in silver embroidery, sapphires and diamonds. Deep pale blue satin sleeves trailed to the ground, while puffed sapphire velvet undersleeves were decorated with bands of silver embroidery. The only part of her attire that broke with the Tudor garb was her hair, flowing loosely over her shoulders in falls of ringlets. She was crowned with a rather pretentious silver and blue velvet crown studded with the same jewels as on her bodice.

I stole a glance at the others. Eila, Kichiro, Rhaksha, Fleur, Mist and Bobby, all accounted for.

"Whisper," I said. "Where's Whisper?"

Another Eraser backhanded me viciously.

"Silence in the Princess' court!" he barked, snarling at me. I shut up, not before poking my tongue out at him. He growled. Another spotlight came on, and an Eraser muscled Whisper forward, both hands firmly tied behind his back. Whisper was limping slightly, a beauty of a black eye was emerging on his face, and his nose was bloodied.

Mist gasped and bit her lip. Whisper wiped his nose with the back of his hand and looked at her, nodding faintly. The girl on the throne rose and brushed her hair out of her face with one hand. She giggled, an oddly out of place sound in the setting. Like, Itex plus giggling equals _does not compute_.

"Oh, This is charming," she giggled, full pink lips curling into a sunny smile. "All the little boys and girls, together at last."

Whisper looked like he was about to fall over.

"Shi- Shiloh?" he said. The little girl giggled again, grey eyes twinkling with malice.

"Oh, dear brother," she smiled condescendingly. "How sweet of you to join us."

She stepped down from the dais, cloak trailing a full three yards behind her. She twirled her elaborately ringleted hair, pacing in front of Whisper.

"Do you know how long I've waited?" she snarled, expression turning bitter. "I was gonna die, and you didn't even make a sound!"

"I thought you were dead," Whisper muttered, staring at the floor.

"Yeah, I very nearly was," Shiloh spat. "I know about your power! Why, why didn't you come and save me? You could've! You didn't!"

Whisper looked at her, sorrow in his eyes. "I wish I could've. I wish I did, because then you wouldn't have betrayed us like this."

"Betrayed?" she spat, letting out a harsh bark of laughter. "Oh, brother. I didn't _betray_ you. I just chose the winning side. _You_ betrayed _me_."

Shiloh beckoned. The Erasers lining the room converged on Whisper.

"No!" Rhaksha shouted. "Don't-"

An Eraser cut her off. Its punch sent her into the wall with a very loud thud and a gasp of pain.

"Hands off!" I shouted. Eila lunged but the iron chains yanked her back savagely. She hissed and spat. Kichiro snarled, almost wolfishly, straining against the shackles.

"That's enough," Shiloh said, waving her hand again. The Erasers immediately rose up and parted like the Red Sea. I bit my lip to stop a gasp escaping. Mist let out a wild, wordless cry.

Whisper lay on the red carpet, bloodied, bruising and broken. His arms shook as he struggled to lean up on his elbows. Shuddering, he coughed. Blood spotted the carpet. Whisper looked up, one side of his face dyed red by a cut somewhere on his forehead. He hauled himself up to a sitting position, and stumbled to his feet.

"Shiloh..." he rasped. "This... is not... you."

Shiloh smiled nastily and drew a large Uzi. "Oh, Whisper. Don't you see? I'm me. This is who I am."

And then she shot him.


	24. Chapter 24

Whisper's eyes widened, and a strangled gasp escaped his lips. His hand found the wound, as if guided by instinct. All the colour drained from his face, and he shuddered. Whisper's trembling hand came away soaked in blood. He crumpled to the ground soundlessly.

"_No_!" Rhaksha shouted. Eila lunged, straining against the chains that savagely yanked her back. Mist snarled and I slammed into the Eraser nearest to me, the full weight of my body crashing into the far heavier, more muscled mutant. The Eraser snarled, and picked me up by the front of my shirt and threw me back into the wall. My vision flashed white, the black, the slowly blurred into colour again.

The hall was filled with shouting, and crying. The manacles holding the flock back clanked and groaned as they lunged again and again. I could hear Mist cursing the very name of Itex with all the dirty words in her vocabulary. Kichiro howled, baying for blood. Eila stamped her feet, rattling the chains as she flung accusations at Shiloh, at the Erasers. Fleur lashed out, lightning fast, if anyone every stepped within her range.

Tears ran down Bobby's face as he screamed, "_MURDERERS! MURDERERS!_"

White-robed scientists wheeled over a metal gurney, hauling Whisper's body onto the trolley and wheeling it away, even as his blood sank into the carpet. Rhaksha screamed and struggled wildly, throwing herself after the gurney and the whitecoats. She fell to her knees, wailing. Shiloh signalled to her lieutenants, and teams of Erasers fastened our hands behind our backs. They tied our feet so that we could only take small, shuffling steps.

"You sick bastards!" I shouted. "Plagues be upon your name! Burn in hell! Rot with the garbage!"

Shiloh clicked her tongue and gestured to a door off the side of the grand hall. They dragged us back into a featureless white corridor, tiled on all sides with smooth white. Harsh fluorescents flickered above.

Shiloh's voice floated from the other room.

"Get rid of the carpet. It's beyond salvaging from all the blood," she ordered dispassionately.

Somehow, that made Whisper's death all the more real.

* * *

_Seven months._

All the time it takes to redefine the meaning of hell.

_Seven weeks_.

Just long enough to break seven kindred spirits.

_Seven days_.

The time it takes to realise that this time, there may not be a next time.

_Seven hours._

How long it takes to lose hope.

_Seven minutes._

After which, the dreadful reality finally sinks in.

_Seven seconds._

Long enough for the single shot to be fired.

_Time_.

Seven hearts shatter.

* * *

"Move it!" the Eraser snapped, giving me a hard shove. Blood from a cut over my eyebrow stained my vision red. Every step was like dancing on red-hot iron nails. The maze had my thanks for that. My hospital gown _had_ been fresh- a week ago. I recognised the accelerator chamber, 'cause they'd taken me here twice before. The Erasers nearly flung me into the reinforced perspex tube that was the accelerator. Five inch thick tubes snaked over the floor, bolted down with metal brackets. Tubes and pipes from the ceiling fed down into the top of the accelerator, where the main reactions took place.

I collapsed, sliding down the clear material and leaving a reddish smear. The floor was cold titanium, bumped and ridged with a profusion of laser cut channels. A whitecoat stopped in front of the glass and clicked his fingers.

"You, experiment! Stand up!" he barked. I spat at him half-heartedly and scrambled to my feet. Last time, I was sitting when they fired it up. I couldn't let anything touch my backside for a week.

The hum of the machine powering up built quickly, and the first stirrings of air in the accelerator were audible. The mechanical hum crescendoed, building in intensity until it blocked out all the sound of the whitecoats scribbling and arguing.

A smooth female voice sounded from the speaker above my head.

"Initialising accelerator program. Launch in ten seconds."

I shut my eyes and counted down in my head.

_Ten._

_Nine._

_Eight._

_Seven._

_Six._

_Five._

_Four._

_Three_.

_Two._

_One._

The accelerator burst into white light. The machine shrieked and the air jets picked up, lifting me off my feel. The jittery feeling came on, vibrating in my bones and shaking up the very atoms forming my physical self.

Oh, God, what happened next was indescribable. I felt so powerful, so, all seeing, so omnipotent. The machines _spoke_. The algorithms, the commands, the processing- I understood it _all_. And what was more, I could change it, talk right back. I had every electronic machine in the world at my disposal. I could hack the nuclear weapons systems of every country on earth. I could kill. I could destroy on a scale completely unknown to me before.

With the slightest notion-

It was amazing. Incredible, mind-blowing... terrifying.

The machine shut down instantaneously. I hit the floor with a thud, breathing hard. The lights came on again. I didn't even know they'd been dimmed.

A light, girlish laugh sounded from outside the tube, muffled by several inches of perspex. Shiloh placed her pale hand on the perspex and smiled benevolently at me. I backed away, hitting the other side of the tube.

And Eraser hauled me out and dropped me at the feet of the girl villain. Shiloh laughed again and leaned down. I stared resolutely at the floor. Her hand cupped my cheek and she forced me to meet her eyes.

"Did you like that?" she asked eagerly. "Did you like feeling powerful, like you could rule the world?"

She let her hand fall and stepped away, turning around once, hands in the air. She laughed gleefully.

"Oh, what it's like," she sighed. "How incredible it is, you know? Griffin, I can make all your dreams come true! I can give you a safe home, a life without being constantly chased, constantly hunted."

I froze at the thought.

"I can give you your every want, your every desire."

Shiloh pushed back my hair and smiled gently, almost looking innocent.

"You only need to do one thing." Shiloh danced out of reach, stretching out her hand to me.

"Join us."


	25. Chapter 25

Silence.

"No!" I shouted. Shiloh leaned back, looking as if I'd slapped her in the face. Her expression hardened; the glee that had suffused her persona vanished. Instead, cold determination replaced it. She beckoned at squad of Erasers.

Shiloh's voice was cold. "Take him to #48-0."

"No, no, no," I whispered. "Please, God, if you're out there, not #48-0. Please no."

"Actually, no," Shiloh smiled, grinning nastily. "Take the Asian girl."

"No!"

"I knew you'd see it my way. You have three days to think," Shiloh stated, laughing humourlessly. "If not, a fate unimaginable awaits your darling girl."

Dread knotted in my stomach. I shut my eyes tightly as they bore me away.

* * *

Kichiro snarled. He struggled to get free of the Erasers holding him, but to no avail. Their grip felt like steel manacles, and they easily outweighed him by over one hundred and fifty pounds. The Eraser on his left kicked down the door leading to their containment room. They were, surprisingly, no longer housed in Kanine Kampers. Instead, they were faced with the luxuries of solid metal cages with a solid base, solid top, and solid bars on all sides. The only part left free was the door, and that was secured with a good old fashioned lock, albeit the most complicated one known to the majority of mankind.

The Eraser to Kichiro's right smashed his hairy mitt into Kichiro's face. He cried out and staggered into the other Eraser. The man-beast growled and pushed him roughly to the floor, kicking him with a steel capped boot. Kichiro sucked in a breath. The pain was intense. A sudden blow to the back of his head sent off a flash of white. A claw descended, and Kichiro rolled out of the way. The vicious fingers of bone sliced open three parallel lines across his cheek. Kichiro pushed off the floor and lashed out with a low leg sweep.

The Eraser retaliated and picked him up by the back of his hospital gown. With a swift movement, the wolf man hurled Kichiro into the opposite wall.

"Kichiro!" Eila shouted. "Nine 'o-clock!"

He blindly lashed out, hitting flesh as he tried to wipe the blood from his eyes. Something picked him up by the front of his gown.

Stinking Eraser breath clouded into his face. The Eraser smirked and chuckled.

"Never stood a chance against us, birdie_,_" he chuckled. Kichiro snarled, and his vision washed red. It felt as if a volcano of fury and rage erupted inside, and he tensed. He vaguely registered Mist's widened eyes, her gasp of horror; Bobby's expression of terror. Eila stiffened and stared, open mouthed. Rhaksha shut her eyes and curled into the furthest corner of her cage.

Kichiro sprang, swiping at the Eraser's eyes with his claws. Fur bristled along his arms, and Kichiro leapt at the wolf-mutant's throat. He ended it with a bite to the throat, crushing the other mutant's windpipe. The warm blood flooded his mouth, salty and hot and smelling like life. It felt good.

With his first kill still losing its warmth under his feet, Kichiro howled for more.

Kichiro snarled and sprung from his crouch, taking down one of the other Erasers. It went quickly after that. There was the spring, and the clawing, the fight, the kill. The feel of blood against his skin, down his throat. The animalistic abandon, the primeval hunger, reigned.

The animal taking over his mind lashed out with all the insanity of a starving survivalist. When the corpses stopped piling up, Kichiro hurled himself against the bars, reaching for Mist's throat. Mist screamed and kicked out with both of her feet. Kichiro howled and recoiled, but crashed against the bars again, eyes wild with hunger. His canines protruded over his bottom lip, coated in a sheen of fresh blood. Sweat matted his hair and he was almost entirely covered in blue-black fur.

"Kichiro!" Eila shouted. "No! Kichiro, listen to me!"

Kichiro froze, cocking his head like an animal that did not fully understand the command it had been given.

"This is not you, Kichiro," Eila continued. "Snap out of it! You are a person, not an animal."

He snarled and sprang at Eila. She screamed, protecting her face with her arms. Kichiro froze as he saw the terror filling her eyes. He stared at the blood on his hands, and the blood on the floor. It came trickling back, little by little. The animal gave way, and the boy realised with horror what he had done.

The horror of _what_ he had become dawned upon him.

His hands were still outstretched through the bars, reaching for Eila. The fur and the canines were gone, but the blood remained. He had wanted to taste her, to feel her life and her fear.

A stinging pain in the back of his neck. Then, nothing.

* * *

A hand reached into the cage and shook me awake. Sleep dulled my reactions. I groggily sat up, shaking my head and rubbing my eyes. A pair of bright eyes sparkled faintly in the darkness. The figure to whom they belonged was swathed in black from head to toe. They held a ring of keys, and a few packs were on the floor behind them. I could tell. The surgery they'd given me just after Whisper... passed, seven months ago. The surgery enhanced my night vision.

The ring of keys clinked and finally, the figure selected one and unlocked my cage with it. I opened my mouth, but the figure quickly placed a gloved finger on my lips, gesturing for silence. They handed me a key and pointed at Eila's cage. They headed over to Mist's cage and unlocked the cage, gently shaking Mist's shoulder to wake her. I opened Eila's cage and shook her awake.

Eila came to instantly, and I gestured for her to go and wake Kichiro and Rhaksha up. Mist woke Bobby and hauled him to his feet. Eial shook Kichiro from his fitful sleep. He bolted upright, eyes wide. The figure in black opened the door and stole down the left corridor, beckoning to us. I hesitated, but Mist looked at me seriously. I frowned slightly, but she gave me a hard look, all full of steel and determination. I relented.

We followed the figure down the corridor, up and down, over, under, sideways, _through a vent_ for goodness' sake. We finally hit a door, which the figure muscled open. It lead outside. The night sky sparkled, the stars standing out clearly with no light pollution to dim their brightness. The figure gestured for us to leave. The flock had no second thoughts.

We were out.

* * *

_Seven months ago..._

Every shaky breath felt like he was swallowing fire. There was pain everywhere, stabbing into his senses like blades. Every heartbeat felt like a stab from a knife with backward serrations, and the light from above was bright, burningly, blindingly so. Low voices conversed nearby, and cold metal secured both his wrists to the bed. A monitor beeped steadily in the background, and pens licked.

"Vitals are good."

"So are- wait, is this...?"

"Neural activity is increasing. The subject is coming out of its coma?"

He sucked in a lungful of sterilised air stinking of antiseptics. With horror, he slowly recollected the last events in his mind. No. No, it couldn't be. Faint impressions of white flashed through his mind. His breathing grew fast and shallow; the beeping of the monitor crescendoed and accelerated. He thrashed, kicking and straining and screaming with pain. The voices rose to shouts of panic.

Fresh blood spilled over his torso as stitches split and pink lines of scar tissue re-opened. Pain, panic, terror.

Whisper's eyes flew open.


	26. Chapter 26

**Griffin**

I smiled pleasantly at the bored twenty-something year old behind the lobby desk. The marble floored, brightly lit hotel had obviously been recently done, as there were no people to speak of yet. Well, the place was in the middle of nowhere. I looped my arm around Fleur's waist as she smiled at the girl behind the counter. The rest of the flock were kicked back behind us, dirty sneakers on the coffee tables and packs slung all over the floor. Since we'd been set free by 'the mysterious entity', later identified by Mist as the same scientist who had set her free, we'd flown like hell out of there, into the next state and the next state across after that.

"We'd like to book a two twin shares and a queen room, please," I said, trying to sound as old as I could. I mean, because bird kids are really tall and everything, we could pass as early to mid-twenties, no problem. Sounding old was no problem. The past seven months had felt like an age, a long and bloody one, full of horror and cruelty. The girl looked at us doubtfully, as if the sheer size and array of appearances in our ragtag group was suspicious. I felt the need to explain.

"This is my wife," I said, indicating Fleur, who smiled and blushed. I pointed at Kichiro. "That's my wife's brother."

I looked at Eila, who was lounging on one of the lobby sofas. "That's my wife's brother's fiancee."

Bobby and Mist popped out from behind us. Bobby rubbed his eyes.

Tugging on his sleeve, he said, "I'm sleepy."

I gave the receptionist and apologetic look. "That's my wife's brother's fiancee's fiance's sister's husband's younger brother and sister."

She frowned and did some facial gymnastics.

Fleur coughed discreetly, and the girl tapped something into the ancient computer humming under the high desk. She fumbled for the keys and handed a couple of keys over.

"Third floor," she muttered sullenly. "Payment?"

I held out the credit card I'd stolen, smiling broadly. She all but dropped the card-swiper onto the table. I swiped it and pressed the credit button. It was time to get forceful with the powers. I forced the machine to accept the card, and it sounded fur perfect beeps in time with my button-pressing. I took back my card. The girl behind the desk was already reading her gossip magazine, popping her gum loudly.

We dragged our packs up the stairs to the third floor, finding our rooms. I unlocked the twin shares first, ushering Bobby and Kichiro in. The other twin share was for Rhaksha and Eila. I unlocked the queen size room that me, Mist and Fleur would be sharing. The girls could take the bed. I'd sleep on the floor with a couple blankets and pillows. The carpet was pretty soft compared to the concrete ledges and forest floors we'd slept on before.

Mist rubbed her eyes and left her pack on the floor. She wandered to the door and signed that she was headed to the girls' room. Kichiro slumped in and leaned against the wall, looking unspeakably tired.

"I'm using the bathroom. Bobby is in ours," he said. He slipped into the bathroom, closing the door.

Fleur closed the door to our room. She smiled at me.

"Well, just us at the moment," she said slowly, as if testing out the words. I nodded, and picked her up bridal-style. She squeaked and looped her arms around my neck. I dropped her on the bed and crash landed next to her. Fleur rolled on top of me, on all fours. Her dark hair fell all around her face like a curtain. I shivered. She grinned, and leant down.

"Well, this is an unexpected change of pace," I said, cheeks burning. Fleur grinned, and replied by kissing me passionately. I responded, and we rolled onto our sides, still kissing. Fleur's fingers tangled in my hair, and I held her more tightly. I ran my tongue across her lips, and she let me in.

We kissed hungrily, hanging onto each other for dear life. I moved away from her lips, trailing kisses down her neck. Fleur's hands went to trailing down my arms, feather light, bringing up goosebumps. I held one arm around her waist, while the other was busy taking off my shirt. Fleur moved my kisses back to her lips. I slid my hand up the back of her shirt to the small of her back.

Fleur froze, and I finally realised that our position was extremely questionable. She and I were lying on a bed together, with my shirt half off. Fleur quickly backed off and sat, tense. She finger combed her hair and I sat, struggling back into my shirt.

"Fleur, what's wrong?" I asked, concerned. She frowned and rubbed her arms.

"Griffin, we're sixteen," she said slowly, "What if we go too far, Griffin? I can't deal with- We can't deal with... We have responsibilities, is what I'm saying."

I leaned back against the pillows, resting on my elbows, thinking.

"I have your solution," I said. "We can act like a middle-aged married couple with children. Sweet, but not dirty."

Fleur laughed. "Oh, Griffin, you're sweet."

Fleur scooted over and hugged me with one arm. I kissed her softly on the forehead. She pecked me on the cheek.

"So, my marital partner in crime," I started. Fleur grinned.

"Gotta rein in those kids, eh?" she drawled. I laughed.

* * *

Kichiro gripped the rim of the bathtub so tightly that his knuckles went white. He stared at the rippling surface of the cold water filling the tub, holding his own vague reflection on its surface. His image inspired terror, hatred; he was anathema unto himself. The beast he had become was clear in his mind.

There were the canines, sharp ivory blades that scissored through yielding flesh as easily as a hot knife through butter. The claws erupting from his fingers were vicious, equally as sharp as his fangs. The blue black fur that covered his arms and back was thick and glossy, smelling strongly of musk and old blood. Fresh blood covered his face is shining scarlet ribbons.

Eila's scream of terror replayed in his mind. Her fear of him was fresh, cutting him worse than any blade could. Kichiro shut his eyes tightly, but the negative image burned behind his eyelids. Eila was afraid of him. He hated himself utterly. Yes, to be unable to protect her from danger, from fear, that was a failure in his duty. To be the cause of fear itself...

In Kichiro's eyes, life was no longer worth living. He would rather be dead than hurt a hair on Eila's head.

His hand found the knife in his pocket. Releasing it from its sheath, he stared at the bright silver blade. The light from above reflected in its mirror-like surface. The water had seeped through his clothes long ago, and he fought to stop himself shivering. Kichiro stared at the blade as the water spilled over the lip of the bathtub, onto the floor. The water creeped across the grey and white marbled floor, flooding around the bathroom and sliding through the gap beneath the door.

Soon, the red tinge of blood spilled into the water.


	27. Chapter 27

Eila rubbed her forehead and held her head in her hands. The cool wind swept over her bare skin, and the cold balcony rails pressed into her back. Shivers raced down her back, chilling her to the bone. There was nothing left to stop her from thinking about it. Nothing in the way, nothing between her and those memories. She'd pushed Rhaksha into washing up and going to bed. Bobby was safely tucked in. Mist could handle herself. Griffin and Fleur were responsible. She trusted the other girl not to misuse or to be misused by the flock alpha.

Eila ran a hand through her hair. She had to keep moving, keep occupied; otherwise the thoughts about him would come back. Such thoughts! Such thoughts, like his eyes and how dark they were, like a cloudless night filled with stars. His hair, always wild and tousled and smelling of rain. His hands, long fingered, rough and calloused. His hands were skilled and nimble; gentle and warm to the touch. The wild look in his eyes and the grief he felt when he saw the destruction he had wrought. His inky-dark eyes were filled with agony as the wolf receded and the consequences of the beast within losing control crashed down.

She forced herself to stand and walk to the door. Mechanically, Eila instructed her hand to turn the doorknob and exit into the corridor. The light from the chandeliers spilled through the narrow gap, washing over Eila's face. She winced. The light was a harsh change from the darkness on the balcony. She shaded her eyes with one hand, feeling her way along the wall with one hand. She felt the recess in which the boys' door was located, and she passed over a corner jutting out from the wall. The wall receded back after a stretch, ad she found the door to Griffin and Fleur's room. The door was unlocked, and Eila shook her head at her leader's distraction. Removing her hand from its task in shading her eyes from the bright light, Eila opened the door.

Eila registered that Griffin and Fleur were snuggled on the bed, asleep with their arms around each other. She smiled fondly, and wondered why the torrent of water sounding from the bathroom didn't wake them up. She noticed the water leaking from underneath the door to the bathroom, soaking the carpet and turning it dark. Eila shifted in unease.

Then she noticed the coppery tang of blood.

Eila leapt across the room in four quick strides, tugging in vain at the bathroom door. With a curse, she backed up a few steps and kicked the door down. It splintered and gave way with a horrendous crash. Eila barrelled into the bathroom, raking it with her eyes.

She stifled a scream.

Crashing and a dull thud echoed from behind her, and Fleur stumbled up behind her. One hand rested on the door way as she fumbled to right her glasses. Eila sensed Griffin behind her, tense and ready to attack. Fleur gasped. Griffin was dumbstruck.

The room was flooded with water pouring over the edge of the bathtub. The bathtub itself was overflowing, icy water rocketing out of the tap at a mile a minute. The pale hand hanging over the side bled freely. _His_ head lolled limply, resting on the edge of the bathtub, pale and motionless.

Griffin splashed into the room, and plunged his hands into the bathtub. Fleur turned the tap off and pulled the plug from the drain. Eila stood immobile in the doorway. Griffin grunted with effort as he dragged Kichiro out of the bathtub. Fleur shifted her focus and helped Griffin lift Kichiro. She looked at Eila.

"Go," she said sharply, snapping Eila out of her stupor, "get the bandages out!"

Eila moved for the packs, clumsily unzipping them and fumbling for the bandages. She tossed the white rolls of fabric to Fleur, which she deftly caught. She removed the plastic at the speed of sound, handing one to Griffin. She began wrapping Kichiro's wrists tightly, face screwed up in concentration. Somewhere between the blood and the bandages and his closed eyes, Eila sank to her knees. She crawled over to where Kichiro lay on the floor, and checked his pulse. It took a while, but she felt it, weak and rapid beneath her fingers.

"Lift his feet," Fleur ordered, tying off the bandage with a quick yank. Eila could see how tight it was. Tourniquet, she thought vaguely. Numbly, she grabbed a few pillows off the bed and placed it beneath Kichiro's feet. Eila fumbled for his hand, wrapping her own around it. His skin was cold to the touch, like ice. Kichiro shivered unconsciously.

"Is he still bleeding out?" Griffin asked quietly. Fleur hesitated and shook her head.

"The pressure slowed down the bleeding, but..." Fleur swiped at her eyes. "He's so cold..."

The door slammed open. Rhaksha was silhouetted against the light, dark hair mussed. Her face betrayed no emotion. She stepped forwards, and gestured. The door closed soundlessly behind her. Before any of them knew what was happening, they were blown back by some invisible wall of force. Rhaksha lifted her eyes, and threw her hands upwards, as if raising a curtain.

With the movement a pillar of fire rose from the floor, roaring with orange and red flames. Fleur shrieked and Griffin scrambled backwards.

"_Kichiro_!" Eila screamed, tears running freely. The column of fire rose up around him, exploding into a pillar of white heat. She cried out, a wordless cry of agony, fear and fury. Rhaksha's impassive exterior remained in place. In Eila's eyes, she had murdered him in cold blood. After they had done so much to save him. With a cry of rage, the older girl sprang at Rhaksha and slammed her into the floor. The curtain of flame disappeared as Eila tackled Rhaksha. Her hands found the girl's throat, and they wrapped around Rhaksha's throat easily. Eila hissed, tear still streaming down her face. Rhaksha froze.

Then, she burst into tears.

Eila stiffened. Gently, hands moved her away from Rhaksha. Griffin herded her away from the younger girl and Fleur wrapped her arms around their flockmate. Rhaksha mumbled incoherently, shuddering and weeping.

"Whisper, Whisper, I'm sorry, Whisper..." she breathed.

Eila let herself fall to the scorched carpet, blindly fumbling her way across the room. She had to find him. She had to find him. Tears blurred her vision, turning the hotel room into a landscape of dark hues. Her fingers brushed against his hand, warm again from the fire's heat. She swiped at her eyes, and her vision cleared. His pale face was smutched with soot, but his eyes were closed. Her hand went to the pulse point on his neck, and her fear rose again; rearing its ugly head, waiting to strike.

Kichiro coughed and gasped, turning onto his side. Eila's breathing hitched in her throat. His eyes fluttered open, and his weary gaze met hers. A singled tear spilled out of the corner of his eye, in unison with Eila's own.

They stayed like that for the longest time, hands clasped around one another's, weeping silently.


	28. Chapter 28

Fleur closed the door and turned slowly to face Kichiro. His gaze fell to his hands, which clenched the covers on the unmarred bed tightly. Fleur was furious. Anger radiated off her in palpable waves. She advanced upon him, taking slow, deliberate steps. Her hands shook. One of her hands forced him to meet her eyes. Fleur stared into his eyes.

Without warning, her hands was up and moving as fast as a striking snake. She slapped him hard across the face, leaving a bright red mark and coming away with a sharp sting. Kichiro's head whipped back with the force of the impact. Kichiro sucked in a breath. He felt the blaze of shame rise to his face, mantling his cheeks redder that they already were. His eyes rested on the white bindings keeping his wrists from bleeding out.

Fleur turned away abruptly, running a hand through her hair.

"Argh!" she shouted, throwing her hands into the air in frustration. "I can_not _believe you, Kichiro! You're a cowardly, selfish, thoughtless, mediocre, no-good, boot-lickin' son of a stinking Eraser's bastard!"

Every word stung worse than the slap Fleur had dished out before.

"Suicide is the lowest, basest, worst from of cowardice there is!" she shouted. "Don't you ever do that again! Do you know what a shock you gave us, huh? Did you even think about how you'd affect the kids? Kichiro, you can't just keep running away from your problems!"

Fleur ran her hands through her face and positively shrieked.

"Kichiro," she said quietly, posture tense, "don't ever do that to us again. We- _Eila_ won't be able to take it. We can't save you every time you decide to have a fit of _utter stupidity_."

Fleur sat on the bed, and her shoulders slumped. Kichiro glanced at her briefly. Fleur looked at him, looking tired and worn.

"Please, Kichiro," she said softly. "Just... don't do that again. Eila needs you."

With that, Fleur left.

* * *

Eila touched down on the balcony softly and pushed aside the screen door. The scant light from the stars above shone through the gap in the doors. Eila's shadow spilled across the floor, vague in the dim light. She shivered, rubbing her arms. The tank top she was wearing didn't do much in the early spring chill.

On the bed, the covers were all but undisturbed. The figure on the large bed shifted. Eila stepped inside and closed the door. She made her way across the room, stepping around the blood stains and charred carpet. The figure on the bed shifted even more, sliding into a half-sitting, half- lying down position.

Eila sat on the bed, and her hand found Kichiro's. He looked away, dark hair hiding his eyes. Kichiro bit his lip, waiting for her to say something. Fleur's lecture had left him feeling terrible. Eila shuffled closer, and gently brushed his hair out of his eyes. In the dark, she could make out that Kichiro's eyes were bright, and he was blushing furiously- with what, shame, anger? Eila couldn't tell. Her fingers moved of their own accord, gently trailing down the side of Kichiro's face. Her palm cupped his cheek, and Eila leaned closer.

Without warning, she flung her arms around him and hugged him tightly. Her face rested in hollow at the base of his neck. Eila's hand went to his hair, stroking it gently as she breathed in his scent. Kichiro's eyes were wide. Slowly, he relaxed. Eila shuddered, sobbing silently. His arms snaked around her, warm and strong and very much alive. The rough bandages brushed against her bare arms, and he shivered. Her body heat spread through him like fire. Eila shifted, and he moved to accommodate her. Her dark eyes met his, and their breath mingled. Their faces were inches apart. Eila could see the fear in his eyes.

"Eila..." he whispered, looking troubled. "I, I'm-"

Kichiro sucked in a shuddering breath. When he spoke again, his voice was so quiet that she could barely hear him.

"I'm a killer, Eila," he murmured, sounding broken, scarred. His eyes had drifted down again.

"Kichiro," she whispered, lifting his chin with her fingers. "We'll never see you that way, Kichiro. _I_ will never see you that way."

Kichiro's eyes widened in disbelief. Eila smiled gently. Kichiro leaned down, and their noses touched. Eila's hand slid around his neck, and he drew her closer.

"I need you," she whispered. That was all the invitation that they both needed.

Eila kicked off her shoes and swung her legs onto the bed. His fingers ran through her hair, while the other hand traced the outlines of her face, feather-light. A ripple of mutual satisfaction ran through them.

They weren't quite sure how it happened, but somehow, they closed the distance. Their lips met, soft and hesitant at first; the kisses increased in passion and energy. Their lips explored the other's; Eila tilted her head so that they could come closer. Kichiro could feel her smile, lips parting slightly. His tongue glided over her full lower lip. Her own darted out in reply, and he eagerly let her in. Eila hummed in pleasure.

Slowly, they broke apart, breathing hard. Eila dragged him down sideways, and Kichiro rolled to make room for her on the bed. The covers were kicked off, and Eila's arms wrapped around him. Kichiro planted a kiss on her forehead, and she nuzzled him in return.

"Eila," he murmured in her ear. Eila's eyes drifted shut, and she smiled.

"Mm?"

"Thank you," he said. Eila's eyes opened and she raised a brow in inquiry.

"For...?"

"Just being here. I... love you, Eila," he whispered. Eila stiffened, and Kichiro got the terrible sinking feeling. _Oh, no..._

She relaxed and kissed his cheek. "I love you too."

"Oh," Kichiro said, more than a little dazed. It took a few moments for the gravity of her revelation to sink in. "_Oh..._"

Eila kissed him on the lips again, and he responded.

The slide into oblivion was long and slow and sweet.


	29. Author's Notice

**Author's Notice**

**Hi, everybody, and thank you for taking the time to ready the second flock's story! I regret to inform you that I may only be updating sporadically over the end of December to the end of January, as I will be overseas with limited opportunities to connect to the internet. When I do update, I anticipate that I may put up multiple chapters. So hang in there, guys...**

**As for the fate of the story in general, don't worry! DC: Second Flock _will_ be completed, and I anticipate a sequel in the near future of the story. I'm sorry to leave you on such an unfinished note, but the reality of non-connection to the Internet is unavoidable! I will, however, be busily writing as I do have access to a laptop. Never fear, your author is working hard.  
**

**Meanwhile, to show your support for the flock and this story, please review! It would really make a difference if you shared your thoughts and opinions. Just one review from each of you would be nice. Of course, you're under no obligation~**

**Thank you again. Your faithful author,**

**Royal**


	30. Chapter 29

High in the Appalachians, wreathed in cloud, resided a craggy bluff of grey stone. Snow perpetually mantled the bluff, giving the view a scenic, charming touch. The views from the bluff were impressive, to say the least.

Tucked back against the mountain, far from the lip of the cliff, stood a castle-like structure, with spires and towers and buttresses that looked ready to leap into the sky. It was as lacy and delicate as if spun from sugar, ornately decorated with skilled carvings and sculptural pieces. The gardens in the White Castle, too, were carved from stone. The blossoms themselves were crafted from satin and chiffon for the pleasure of the Castle's ruling inhabitant. Snow occasionally fell into the gardens, but was seldom cleared away. The castle's ruler enjoyed the cold and the crunch of snow beneath her feet. It was the sound of victory, she reasoned, the sound of enemies crushed underfoot.

Beneath the castle, however, dug into the rock and fortified with steel, was an ultra-modern scientific facility. Scientists bustled about most hurriedly, ferrying data and instructions to and from the upper levels, where their director spent most of her time. In the heart of the facility was a white room, bare of anything but a white bed, a dresser and a white chair. The room had a tiny bathroom, no larger than a big closet. In the white room, there were no doors or windows. There were no surveillance cameras, no hidden microphones. The chamber's inhabitant had confirmed that much. The inhabitant, too, was clothed in white, and the only point of colour in the room was of the inhabitant's dark hair.

Whisper flopped onto the white bed and waited for the lights to dim. His internal clock (well, not really, more like daily cycle of events monitor) had just ticked around to lights out time. He was bored. The boredom had not been unexpected, but still, it was an irritation. He had been in the room for about two hundred and seventy four cycles. So, counting, it had been seven months in real world time.

Seven months in isolation.

Seven months without the flock.

Seven months without Rhaksha.

Whisper closed his eyes and tried to visualise their faces. Bobby, he could remember easily. That had something to do with the spaced-out, lopsided smile and look of confusion that he often wore. It was not in the least uncomfortable; in fact, it was quite cute. Mist's sunny smile was easy to remember, as were her high cheekbones and rounded face shape. Griffin was harder to remember. His hair and his skin were nearly the same shade. The things that Whisper distinctly remembered about the flock leader were that his cheekbones were high, too, and sharp enough to cut with.

Fleur and Kichiro were indistinct. Fleur's face had all the soft, feminine contours that somehow refused to stick in his mind. Her hands, soft but strong and quick, were the easiest to remember about her. Kichiro's wings were dark and very, very long, darker and longer than his. He remembered seeing them glinting blue in the night, when they'd been fling under the moon. They were like pools of shadow in his mind: there, but indistinct and fuzzy around the edges.

Eila wasn't as hard to remember as Fleur and Kichiro. Her arms were covered in sleeves of scars, and her wild mane of curling brown locks was an attribute that he would easily recognise her for.

Rhaksha... Well, Rhaksha was a different matter entirely. Every detail of her face was clear, like a photograph of a better day. Her face was oval shaped, perfectly proportioned. Her eyes were green, not light, not dark, but somewhere in the pleasant between. Arched brows framed them, and they were set either side of a proud, straight nose. Her cheekbones were strong, too, and her full lips were red and softly curved, with a well defined Cupid's bow. Her hair always fell perfectly in his eyes.

No, Rhaksha was hard to forget. Whisper curled in tighter, and felt the scar that Shiloh's bullet left. It was a constant reminder that she thought he was dead. The whole flock thought he was dead.

Whisper wished her memory would go away, because, just maybe, it would take the pain with it.

* * *

**Griffin**

The sliding doors to the small Arizona supermarket parted before me, and I crossed the threshold into the brightly lit, linoleum-tiled space. Aisles of shelves were arranged in orderly rows, and fridges lined the back and left side of the place. Three check-outs were located on the right. The staff door was set in the back wall. The whole front of the store was glass, easy enough to smash should there be the need for an escape.

Kichiro stepped in beside me as Eila settled Bobby on her back. The nine-year-old was fast asleep. Eila had picked him up about fifteen minutes, twenty minutes ago, 'cause he looked so dead on his feet. Mist guided Rhaksha inside. The older girl seemed...numb. Detached. Not there. She'd been numb like that, far away, since Whisper had... gone.

There was one cashier, and the only other guy in the store was a strawberry-blond in a pale blue windbreaker. He was insanely tall, as tall as me, skinny and lean. Two beanies were shoved over one another on his head, and tufts of strawberry blonde hair stuck out over his ears. He wore a faded, worn windbreaker zipped up to the chin, and he was covered with several layers of scarves.

He picked up a can and turned it over in his hands, before putting it back on the shelf and picking up one from the shelf above. He felt the can and snorted, returning it none too gently and knocking some plastic soda bottles off the shelf by accident. The cashier, a pudgy, spectacled dude with pimples, cleared his throat loudly.

"Ex_cuse_ me," he all but yelled, "careful with the merchandise! You pay for what you break!"

The guy turned toward the clerk. We moved behind a shelf, but I moved the corn chip packets blocking my view. The guy's eyes were blue, but faded and clouded over with white. If they weren't so milky, they would have been my exact eye colour. His face was familiar, like looking at a blurry photograph of someone I hadn't seen in a long time. Who was it?

Mist gently shook my shoulder.

"Griffin," she whispered. "He looks like _you_."

* * *

**Iggy**

I stalked out of the convenience store, clutching the plastic bag in my left hand. The thin plastic straps dug into my palm, and the canned food clunked against the other foodstuffs. Chocolate bars rustled against the bottle of milk and I made my way into the back alley behind the store. The wind was picking up, and a droplet of rain landed on my nose. My shoe bumped against a trash can and the refuse on the floor crunched beneath my feet. I pulled my beanie down over my ears, effectively muffling the sounds from outside.

My right hand felt for the fire escape ladder which I'd come down from. There was no room in the alley to take off, and my wings had grown to fifteen and three quarter feet. I clambered up the iron rungs and kept my hold on the bag of food. The rooftop was signalled by a rush of wind and the sound of empty space. The darkness didn't make a difference. It was always dark.

I let my wings unfurl, and turned to look at them. The white feathers were vague, but visible. Everything else was black, like always. Angel told me that my wings were white with black tips. That was doubtful. The little girl had lied to all of us so much that I couldn't trust her. Max never really regained her faith in Angel. Then again, she wasn't in much of a condition to- Never mind.

I shook my head like a wet dog, but stopped. It made the slight throbbing above my right eyebrow much, much worse. Thinking about stuff like that- well, it was a sure way of giving yourself headaches.

Behind me, there were seven soft snaps, like fabric catching wind. Rustling, footsteps... I dropped the bag of groceries.

I whirled, sliding into fighting stance and launching myself at the footsteps that were closest. The person caught my fist with a calloused palm without moving from their firmly planted stance. Their other hand snapped out and fastened around my wrist. It was like an iron manacle. I growled. The person sighed, and shook their head. The other people gathered around

"You're right, Mist," a young boy's voice said. "He really _does_ look like Griffin."

"I told you." That was a girl's voice, light and softly inflected. She sounded smug.

"Sorry, Mist, but no-one gives a horse's arse if you told Bobby," an older girl said. Her voice was rich and low. There was a rustle of cloth. I recognised it as a n arm slipping around someone's waist. Max and- It didn't matter. They'd done it enough for me to be able to tell. The older girl grunted, followed by the sound of a quick kiss.

"Uh, excuse me," I said. My captors stared at me. I could feel their eyes resting on me.

"Oh, well," a new voice said. It was male, about my age, light and pleasant. "Well. I'm Griffin."

I raised my eyebrow. Griffin lifted my free hand and there was the sound of a wing unfurling. My fingers met a warm expanse of familiar textures. White and black. White and black feathers.

A wing?

Griffin coughed discreetly and removed my fingers. "Well, seeing as we're kind of, you know..."

"Just spit it out," another boy deadpanned. His voice was deeper, and kind of soft, like he didn't speak often.

Griffin took a deep breath. "Well, Ikindoflookexactlyjustlikeyou."

…

Well, this is going to be extremely interesting.


	31. Chapter 30

**Griffin**

Iggy pointed us in the direction of a clump of houses. We'd passed from the other side of the city into the residential districts, skirting around high-rises and battling extremely uncommon cold winds. Iggy told us, once the edge had come off his defences, that Arizona was generally a warm and agreeable place. Kichiro sneezed, and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Mist giggled, a sound weirdly distorted by her chattering teeth. Iggy dropped and we followed at top speed to reduce the chance of being seen. A few yards from the ground, we unfurled our wings. Mine caught the air with a snap and a painful jerk. Ouch.

Bobby hissed. His wings jerked up like mine. Rhaksha landed, posture stiff. Her face was blank. If she felt pain, she didn't react to it. Iggy fished for a key in his pocket with one hand, screwing up his face in concentration. Finally, he found the right key and led us from behind the house to the front door. The lights were on, bathing the front yard in golden light.

"Why is the light on?" Mist murmured, uneasy. Iggy's face drained of colour. He marched up to the door and forced the key into the lock, turning it and nearly kicking the door down in his eagerness to enter. The house blazed with light. From one of the front rooms came a thump and the heavy fall of running feet.

"_Iggy_!" A dark-skinned, dark-haired girl barrelled out of the room to crash into Iggy. She was all long legs and slender arms, with curves in all the right places. She threw her arms around him, burying her face in his windbreaker. She abruptly pulled back, and extremely pissed expression.

Guess what?

She socked him one. The girl landed a punch on his jaw, making his head snap to the side. The groceries fell to the floor for the second time that day.

"Hey! What was that for?"

The girl's face darkened. Her voice was deadly quiet. "Where _were_ you? Angel went to your room because she couldn't sleep, and what does she find? The window open, and your bed empty! It's like you were never even there! We thought- We thought..."

Her lip quivered, but she set her shoulders and lifted her chin.

"Don't you _ever_ do that again, do you hear me?" she shouted. "Don't worry us so! If you disappear, for real- The kids, they won't-"

She seemed to notice us, and cut herself off. She looked at Iggy, who clutched his newly purpling bruise. She looked at us. Her eyes slid back and forth and back and forth.

The girl positively exploded.

"AND WHO THE _HELL_ ARE THEY?"

* * *

Nudge curled up on the sofa, holding a mug of hot chocolate in both hands. Iggy sat next the her, long legs stretched out underneath the coffee table. On the other side of the coffee table, Eila, Fleur and I were squished on the sofa. Kichiro was lying on the floor, windbreaker functioning as a pillow. Bobby sat at our feet, cross-legged. Mist leaned against the sofa, inspecting me and Iggy's faces. Rhaksha was a way off, lying on her side and staring blankly.

Nudge placed her chocolate on the table, a serious look coming over her face.

"I take it," she started, "that you guys are...like us."

I nodded in the affirmative. "We've been a flock for about nine, ten months. I'm Griffin. Eila is my second in command. Then there's Kichiro, Fleur, Mist, Bobby and Rhaksha."

"You've heard of us, right?" Nudge asked. "Maximum Ride's flock."

"We've been a flock for nearly eight years," Iggy said bitterly. He stared at his hands. "But nowadays, doesn't really feel like we were ever a flock of six."

"What do you mean?" Eila asked quietly, leaning forward. Nudge tapped Iggy's hand, and he nodded.

"I supposed we should start from the beginning. Me'n Iggy, we didn't used to be in charge of the flock. But, we can't really start from there. Unless you get the story in order, it wouldn't make sense," Nudge said. She looked tired, older. Iggy picked up the story.

"We were ten when we escaped, me and Max and Fang. Nudge was eight, give or take a bit. Gazzy was four; Angel, two. Jeb Batchelder, one of the scientists, let us out, and we found the E-house in the Rockies. God, those were the best years of our lives," he said, the bitter edge creeping back into his voice. "They were the best years, because we didn't know any better. It was like someone had dropped us into some alternate life, where there wasn't pain, or terror. The first weeks on the outside, I kept waking up at night thinking that it was all just a dream."

Nudge continued. "Two years, we lived with Jeb. Until, one day, he just up and disappeared. We woke up, and he was just gone. Like that. We, me and Fang and Max, flew and flew and flew, looking for him in the valley, in the mountains. We flew until we could barely see and our wings were going to fall off. We didn't find him. We thought he was dead. The hardest part was telling the kids. At first, they didn't understand. They just kept asking for him, asking where he was like bewildered ghosts. It rocked us all so much. Fang, normally he was an emotionless rock, but the fifth time Angel came to him asking for Jeb, he looked like he was gonna hit her. Max, she was shaken, too, but she did her best to become the leader. She was like our strength."

"For two years, we lived on our own. It was harder, but not by much. Max became the leader, and we settled into life without Jeb. The years made the pain fade, but sometimes, during those two years, I'd see Fang just staring at Jeb's photo. Just... staring. I cried sometimes, letting it spill over. That sucked the poison off his memory." Nudge's eyes were over-bright.

"Two years ago, when we thought we were safe, they came." Iggy's eyes dropped to his hands. "_They_ came. The Erasers, the School's hellhounds, they came and took Angel. They kidnapped her, and took her back to the School. Max, Nudge and Fang, they chased after her, leaving me and Gazzy at the E-house. The Erasers came after us then, and we had to leave, finding the rest of the flock. They captured us, but we escaped with Angel. We went to New York to follow a lead about our parents, but nothing came of that. The Eraser that had lead the chase after us, Ari, well, Max accidentally killed him," Iggy recounted.

"We escaped, and started flying to Washington D.C.," Nudge said. "They ambushed us in the sky, and nearly killed Fang. There was nothing we could do. We had to go to a hospital, and Anne Walker from the FBI met us there. She took us in, paid for us to go to school. We found Iggy's parents, and he left us then. Things with Anne went bad. We found out she was the Director of Itexicon, the company that made us the way we were. On our way there to destroy Itex, Max was replaced with a clone. The flock broke into Itex, and broke out again."

"What happens after that is not as important, but that Max and Fang finally got together," Iggy said, "But what happened just over a year ago does. We were in Africa when we first met Dr. Hans Gunther-Hagen, and his recombinant Dylan. He said that Dylan was supposed to be Max's perfect other half. Max and Fang were so absorbed in one another that it nearly ripped the flock apart. They weren't there for us, and we needed them. I began to resent them. They had no right to go off on us like that."

His voice had risen, and crimson flags burned on his cheeks. He had half risen from his seat, but Nudge placed a gentle hand on his arm, forcing him to sit.

"Let bygones be bygones," she murmured. She shook her head. "You just need to know that Fang nearly did die that time, but he was fine. He lived, but then..."

"He did the worst thing possible," Iggy said. Nudge looked down and whispered something.

"What?" I asked. Nudge looked up, eyes blazing and skin flushed with anger.

"He left," she said, voice full of cold fury. "He left us, and he really did tear up the Flock! Angel and Gazzy, they really aren't like children anymore. They're too old for their bodies, and they've seen too much. Iggy and I, we try to keep it together, but it's hard. We save and scrimp and beg the government for money, but sometimes, it's not enough. We can't live on the run, otherwise we would have left long ago. It's much cheaper," she said, worry and desperation consuming her anger.

"Max?" Kichiro ventured. Iggy shook his head.

"You want to know what happened to her?" he said softly, getting up and heading for the stairs. We followed him, padding up the stairs, down the hall to the furthest, most isolated room. Iggy flocked on the light, and turned the knob. He opened the door.

Light spilled onto the bed, and I heard someone gasp.

The room was filthy, and the bed looked like it hadn't been made in over a century. The woman on the bed, though, she was a sight. Her blonde-streaked brown hair was snarled and matted, and her eyes were red and swollen with crying. She looked up and shielded her eyes from the light. Her eyes fixed on Kichiro.

"Fang?" she asked, voice cracked and rasping. Her arms were bony, and her clothes hung off her body. She staggered and pushed her way toward Kichiro, cupping his face with both her hands. She looked into his eyes, and turned away quickly, collapsing into a heap. She screamed, tears running down her face. She shoulders shook with violent, spasming sobs. Her screaming continued as she poured out her grief.

"This..." Mist breathed. "_This_ is Maximum...Ride?"


	32. Chapter 31

**Griffin**

Mist stared at the woman sobbing on the floor, aghast. She pressed a hand against her mouth, eyes wide with shock. Eila frowned slightly, and her hand found Kichiro's. Silently, she shifted closer to him, until their bodies made contact from shoulder to ankle. Kichiro untangled his fingers and unconsciously wound his arm around her shoulders. Eila rested her head on his shoulder, her frown easing out. Fleur seemed to note this sudden change. Her expression remained carefully smoothed into a mask of polite concern. It seemed partially genuine, but her eyes were calculating. You could practically hear the gears turning in her head. Rhaksha, as always, was blank-faced. Her eyes seemed dead, blank – cold. Without a word to express even a shred of pity, she turned and descended the stairs.

Mist seemed to rouse from her stupor.

"Wait," she said. Nudge ushered Max into her room, while Iggy turned, an impatient look on his face. Mist drew breath to continue.

"We still haven't addressed the matter," she began, "of you two looking almost completely identical."

"But I'm tired," I whined. "Can't we just do it tomorrow?"

Nudge re-emerged, mouth pressed together tightly. She closed the door softly, closing off the noise that Max was making. She looked tired, and glancing at her watch, she sighed.

"Anyone else want to turn in? I'll show you the bathroom and drag a couple more pillows out," she announced, rubbing her eyes. Eila stretched, spine popping in a ripple of sound. She indicated her agreement. Bobby drooped and Fleur steadied him with one hand. She blinked slowly and nodded. Mist looked between the boys and the girls. Her shoulders slumped. She went to lean against Eila.

"Come on," I muttered, tapping Iggy on the shoulder. Iggy pointed at the window, and clambered through, kicking off the side of the house with both feet. I followed, fingers clamped to the window sill. Taking off from windows was hard. I guess that you had to push off with all your might or you'd just fall before you could get your wings open. I hadn't mastered it. I mean, I hadn't set foot in a house until months ago.

We flew up to the roof with a couple of hard downstrokes, landing almost soundlessly. The roof tiles were cold, but thankfully not wet. We scrambled up and sat on the peak of the roof, just sitting in silence for a long time.

"So…" I trailed off.

"So…?" Iggy replied.

"So," I said, stretching the word into two syllables.

"So?" Iggy asked, smiling slightly. I coughed to cover my chuckle. Iggy grinned.

"Wait," Iggy said. "I need to 'see' what you look like."

Eyes closed, he lifted both hands to my face and brushed his fingers over my forehead, eyelids, cheeks and nose. I squirmed, grimacing.

"Quit wriggling," he snapped, opening his eyes to glare at me. His look turned into one of astonishment.

"What?" I snapped back. Iggy removed his hands, then blinked several times.

"Nothing. Must have been hallucinating," he muttered. He turned my left hand over, palm up, and dropped it like a hot coal. Gingerly, he poked my palm with a finger.

"What is…" I stopped myself as Iggy grabbed my hand and stared at me. His eyes widened.

"Oh," he enunciated.

"Oh, what?"

"Oh, my God," he said.

"Oh my God what?" I snapped. Iggy grinned.

"Oh my God, I can see!"

… Please wait a moment. Bombshells like these require processing time. I grinned, and suddenly hugged Iggy, like, a full-out hug, not a hand-clasp-back-pat man-hug. Iggy nearly felly off the roof. I quickly detached myself, brushing off my shirt awkwardly. Iggy regained his balance, smiling and frowning in puzzlement at the same time. I grinned again, turning it over in my head.

"So that's what you mean!" I said. "Come on. I don't care if we're identical or anything, let's go tell everyone."

The moment Iggy lost contact with my hand, his face fell. "Damn. I'm blind again."

"Well," I said, "It doesn't seem to be a very permanent state. Let's go down."

* * *

Rhaksha stared out the window. Nudge and Iggy's narrative had consumed hours. The rest of them were asleep, blind to the predawn grey, immune to the thoughts that plagued her mind. Rhaksha shut her eyes tightly, covering her face with both hands. The grey light before dawn was too close to the colour of Whisper's eyes. The memories kept flooding back, and sometimes she could not build up the walls that held them back. Rhaksha didn't want to remember. She didn't want to know. She didn't want to feel anymore.

Rhaksha cursed her humanity. She wished that it could be cut out of her, like a tumor, or a growth. Humanity inflicted pain upon her, pain she didn't want to feel. His death had cut her to the core, and now she didn't care.

For all it was worth, Rhaksha didn't exist anymore. Her shell was occupied by a blank, unfeeling void.

When Erasers broke down the door, Rhaksha continued to stare out the window.

* * *

Mist grinned and tackle-hugged both of us. Gazzy, who had woken up in the mean-time, jumped to follow her, wrapping his skinny arms around us as best as he could. Nudge beamed and clapped her hands. It took years off her face. The dark shadows under her eyes and the constant slight frown were erased by the glow of her happiness. Iggy surreptitiously touched my hand, his gaze falling on Nudge. For a moment, he was open-mouthed. Then, he regained his composure as their eyes met. It felt to me like they were only looking, really looking, at each other for the first time.

The flock has a really bad record with touching moments, see. About then, a cannister of knock-out gas smashed through the window and doused the room in white smoke.


	33. Chapter 32

**Griffin**

_Floating. That is all I am aware of. Emptiness, nothingness, supports me; the feeling of floating in space is comforting. There is no pain, no fear, no danger. It is empty, but whole at once. It is not so much the lack of sound, it is the presence of total silence. There is only nothing and everything at once._

_Somehow, something changes. The darkness grows oppressive. The absence of everything stands stagnant. The black presses against my face like a suffocating fog. The emptiness turns into a sucking, grasping void; it struggles to consume me. The touch of the emptiness is like ice. My skin crawls. It is wrong. It is not just emptiness. It is the opposite of existence. _

_I thrash, but the black ooze hampers my movements and absorbs every impact soundlessly. It claws at my skin, returning every blow with equal force. I try to cry out, but the blackness covers my nose and mouth. I can't breath. The blackness pushes against me, tightening like a straightjacket. It seems to taunt me. There is a low voice in my mind, whispering with a thousand voices. It tells me that I am insignificant. I don't matter. The world will not know my loss. _

_I should just let the black take over now. Desperation and hopelessness fills my mind. Dread weighs down my limbs. Terror, rolling in waves over me, consumes my thoughts. I can't think. Panic flares, my instincts kick in and I fight it. I cannot flee it. My head throbs, and my lungs burn with the lack of oxygen. Even through the panic, the terror, I know I am weakening. Every second errupts in a starburst of pain. I lose the energy, the will, to fight it, and I curl into a ball, crushed by the blackness, whimpering. I am aware that tears are running down my face, and I shudder with the sobs stuck in my throat._

_It wants to strip me of every memory, of every feeling I've ever felt before. It wants to erase my humanity. The nonexistence wants _in_. It wants not only to consume, but to obliterate, to devour from the inside out. _

_I let the blackness take over._

_

* * *

_

**Fleur**

_The tepid water drips down my skin, and I shiver. My hair hangs around my face in a stringy, damp curtain. Mk knees shake, but I force myself to lock them so they won't move. I am tied with my hands above my head. If I slump, my wrists will take the full weight of my body. _

_I am exhausted. The ache of tiredness seeps through my bones, and I shiver. A cough bubbles up from between my lips; water choked down the wrong pipe comes up again. They had put me into a tank full of water, smooth and cylindrical and fifteen feet deep. They had left me there, trying to tread water as weights pulled at my feet and my waist. I had struggled as they watched and laughed and screamed insults at me. The time in the tank had seemed like an age, and when they pulled me from it, I was delirious._

_The wet white hospital gown clings to my body. I feel bare; the thin white cotton provides little to no protection from the elements or unwelcome eyes. The room is dark, the only light filters through the tiny barred window in the door. The flagstones are similarly old-fashioned, rough-hewn and cold beneath my feet._

_I hear footsteps and the rattling of wheels against the uneven floor. Keys clank in the lock and the door is opened. Masked whitecoats wheel an ancient, bulky black television into the room, unreeling the power cord and plugging it into the only power point in the room. One of the whitecoats turns the television on. The screen comes to life in blue, before fading to black. The whitecoats leave, locking the door._

_The screen lights up unexpectedly. The video is dim and blurry, but I can make out that a person is there, writhing and screaming as tubes attached at dozens of different points pump drugs into their system. They are suspended in a tank of yellow slush. It is _the _Tank, the one that Eila experienced. The person thrashes and flails, their cries frantic as they claw at their throat. Slowly, their struggles weaken and they curl into a foetal position, whimpering. _

_Even though the image is dim and grainy, even despite the thick Tank-sludge that the person is in, the sound system of the ancient television is working well. In fact, it works a little too well. I would know that voice anywhere. I scream, a sound of sympathetic agony; of anger, of fear. _

_The boy in the tank is Griffin.

* * *

_

**Bobby**

_I wake up in a bed, with my head resting on my pillow. The matress beneath me is covered by a fresh, blue fitted sheet. The doona cover is patterned with cartoon dinosaurs. The room around it is brightly painted, with cheerful yellow furniture. Toys are lined up neatly on the floor, books line the shelves. A tattered exercise book on the desk is labeled 'Calvin Smith' in messy letters. They are letters _not unlike_ my own. Fleur says that a lot. The books in the shelves also had Calvin Smith written on them messily. A lot of them were scribbled in. _

_I am scared. I don't know this place. I don't know what has happened. I can be sure of nothing. _

_I try to recount the facts. My name is Bobby. I am nine, and I have strawberry blonde hair. I am tall for my age, and I have green eyes. I have lots of freckles, and my wings are white with cream spots. My family is Griffin and Fleur and Kichiro and Eila and Rhaksha and Whisper and Mist. I also know Parker Jackson, Beatrix Webber, Violet, Ace, Genesis, Exodus and Armageddon from a long time ago. I know Iggy, and Nudge, and Gazzy and Angel._

_I grab a baseball bat from the foot of my bed and stalk as quietly as I can into the corridor. There are no windows. The corridor looks fresh, new and well cared for. I don't know it either. I can hear steps from in front of me. I heft the baseball bat, more scared than ever. A blonde woman turns into the corridor, looking confused. She kneels in front of me. I raise my baseball bat as a brown-haired man enters the narrow walkway._

"_Calvin?" she says, "What's wrong?"_

"_Who are you?" I ask, narrowing my eyes._

"_Calvin, don't joke around," the man says, frowning. I glare at him and snarl as best I can._

"_Who are you?" I repeat, this time angrily._

"_Calvin, I'm your mother," the woman says, confused. She reaches out to touch me, but I swing with my baseball bat. She is caught unaware. She crashes into the wall, and the man rushes to her side. He shouts at me._

"_Go to your room, Calvin!" the man shouts. _

_I shout back. "You aren't my mother! You aren't my parents! Who are you? Let me out of here! Where's Griffin, and Fleur and Eila? Where're Mist, Rhaksha and Kichiro?"_

_The woman looks shaken. "Calvin, who are Griffin and Fleur and Eila?"_

"_They're my brothers and sisters! They're my _family_!" I shout. "What have you done to them?"_

"_Calvin..." the man says, voice strained. "You're an only child."_

"_You're lying!" I yell, running past them and weaving through the comfortably furnished rooms. I open every door I see, until I reach the kitchen and yank on the last door with all my might. I stop before I step over the doorway._

_Outside is white. Plain, blank white. _

_I throw myself into the white without thinking. Suddenly, I am falling. I cannot pull out my wings. I am tumbling, head over heels and back again and soundless wind rushes past me, plastering my clothes against my body._

_Suddenly, my fall is arrested with a soft thump. I am back in the bedroom._

_I run into the corridor at full pelt, not acknowledging the woman and the man as they turn into the corridor. The woman calls after me; I am already in the kitchen and throwing open the door._

_Without hesitation, I lurch into the whiteness. The same sensation of falling covers me. I land again. I am in the bedroom. I pinch myself, then resort of biting onto my hand, hard. The pain stings, but nothing changes. _

_This is a nightmare, and I can't wake up.

* * *

_

**Mist**

_The room I am in is circular. The walls are smooth and mirror-like, clad in shining silver. I look and look, but I cannot see my own reflection. I lean forward to touch the walls. My fingers meet a cool, yielding substance that ripples like water, blurring and distorting the lack of reflections. Colour spreads from my touch. It spreads and diffuses in wisps of colour like smoke. The smoke takes shape and solidifies into a familiar form. Involuntarily, my hand brushes against the mirror-wall again, leaving a long trail of ripples. Colour blurs and blends, sharpening into focus. Through the mirror-like surface, I can see the flock. Everyone is there._

_Griffin, for once, is clean and neatly groomed. His white-blond hair falls straight, just short of the base of his neck. His eyes, ice blue, are for once cold. Not smiling, not concerned, not decisive; cold. His attire is in complementary shades of royal blue and white, trimmed with silver. He sneers at me, disgust clear on his steeply-angled face as he flicks through a thick, leather-bound book. Seeing Griffin like this- it terrifies me. He is a good leader, and a good person. He has never, _ever_ been like this with us._

_I scramble away, and catch view of Fleur. She is gorgeous, dressed in all emerald silk and black satin. Her hair is twined into curls and put up into a knot. Her eyes are catlike, outlined in kohl and black powder. Her mouth is accented with crimson. The thick emerald green snake wound around her waist and around her shoulders lifts its head inquisitively. She turns up her nose and looks at me as one might look at an insect or an unwelcome rodent. The snake's eyes glitter with malice, matching Fleur's own. The expression of loathing twists her face. She is beautiful, even in hate. Fleur is like a mother to me, even though she is only sixteen. She is wise and compassionate, with gentle but strong hand. Her image bewilders me. _

_The next I see is Eila. She is clothed in indigo and dark purple, and her unbound hair falls to her waist in shining, supple waves. The dress she wears fits like a second skin, accentuating her curves. She fans herself lazily with a vibrant amethyst fan, while holding a pulsing amethyst gem in the other. She glares at me, scarlet mouth twisting, mouthing the word, "Failure." She shields her eyes from me with her fan. I don't understand. What is happening? Eila points at me, silently, motioning for me to be removed. _

_Kichiro follows her with depthless midnight eyes. His black hair hangs in his face, as usual, and his face is impassive. As always, Kichiro is dressed in only black and midnight blue, with a cloak and hood swathed around him. His face is cast with shadows, and his eyes are eerie hollows. The balance scale resting in his hand is level and empty. I turn to him, pleading him with my eyes. I try to speak, but nothing comes out. His eyes meet mine. They burn with hate and revulsion. Fury rolls of his skin in palpable waves. I notice that they are all glowing slightly. The light makes them look even more spectacular. _

_Rhaksha lifts one slender hand in my direction. Red silk clings to her torso, and her tan shoulders are bared. The river of red silk flows into a bustled skirt that pools around her feet. A red ribbon is wound through the fingers of her left hand, then around her left wrist and arm. Before coiling around her waist and around her right arm. Swinging on the end of the scarlet ribbon is a ruby, as large as my palm. Rhaksha's black hair cascades over her shoulders, stark against the ruby-red of her dress. She grins at me, baring her teeth. She laughs soundlessly._

_Bobby stares at me, resplendent in cloth-of-gold and blindingly white silk. His green eyes are narrowed in calculation as he motions lazily. A quivering white quill inscribes characters into a floating book with blank pages. He looks to all the other figures, and shakes his head. He points at me, and shakes his head again. Rhaksha's grin grows broader. Griffin sniffs aristocratically, leafing through his book. Kichiro removes his hood and settles the balance scale in mid-air. Eila lowers her fan. The swinging of the pendulum in Rhaksha's hand grows more rapid. Fleur's snake raises its head, its fat coils gliding silently around Fleur's body._

_Bobby's quill writes my name in the air in glowing letters. The letters drift and settle in one side of the balance scale while Eila throws her purple gem into the other. The scale wobbles before the side with my name on it tilts downward. Rhaksha's eyes seem to gloat at me. Kichiro grins predatorily. Griffin looks up from his book, and draws a runic shape in the air. Bobby's quill moves again._

_Lines of white light appear on my skin, shifting and overlapping. The sea of waving lines turns into a sea of falling leaves, which transforms into a sea of words. The words are clear, even though they are barely legible._

_Failure. Nobody._

_Worthless._

_The white lines crawl more rapidly over my skin, and I scream. The silence shatters; the ruby pendulum flies from Rhaksha's grip, out of the mirror and onto the floor. It shatters in an explosion of blood-like shards. _

_The mirror flashes with bright white light, and the world fades to black.

* * *

_

**Eila**

_The world is a maze of mirrors. I turn, and see my own face, reflected in the smooth, glass-like surface. The mirror-walls are irregular, made of planes of glass haphazardly thrown together in the most bizarre of fashions. Reflections of reflections of reflections stared back at me, surrounding me. The eyes in the reflection's face are wide and brown, holding uncertainty and the tiniest hint of fear. The mirrors stare back at me, and I turn. I decide that there is nothing to do but to take a step. I take another and another. Then, I am walking. I can't see the others. Where are they? Are they safe? I can't hear them._

_The corners and junctions in the maze of mirrors are bewildering. The corridors twist and turn with frightening irregularity. I cannot keep track of my path through this crystalline labyrinth. Corners and changes in direction come with horrific abruptness. I am lost and disoriented. My inner compass has gone awry. I can't make head nor tail of where I am going._

_Light is present, but I can't where it comes from. The mirror-maze is a twisted web of shadows and broken reflections. I rest a hand on one of the mirror-like surfaces, and pull away quickly when I feel a warm, sticky liquid on my palm. I the scent of copper and salt fills my nostrils as I bring it closer to my face. My suspicions are confirmed. It is blood. Not just any blood, but mutant blood._

_Oh, dear. _

_I run down the corridor of mirrors, calling the names of the flock. I whirl as I hit a dead end. Through the mirror maze, I snatch a glimpse of Mist's face. She opens her mouth in a scream. The noise echoes off the walls, and the mirror image shifts again. My line of sight is unpredicatble. The mirrors are deceptive. Here, it is the same as being blind. _

_Silver shards assault my vision. The reflections of reflections are frightening; it makes me feel like I am losing myself. I can't tell which reflection of me is immediate, nor can I tell if I really look that scared. I feel terrified, and it is showing. What happened to my stone mask? Is it a trick of the mirror, or is someone really there, hunched over, bleeding-_

_A cry of pain interrupts my train of thought. The bleeding figure shifts as a new line of red opens on their body. I move, trying to get a better look at the bleeding body. The figure moans plaintively, their once smooth, moon-pale back a gory mess of torn skin. Shivers creep down my spine. It is the cold, and my dread as well. The voice is one I know too well. The figure's red hair is not red at all In fact, it is white blond soaked with blood. Griffin turns over as his arms collapse beneath him. He lands hard, on his back, and screams. The sound echoes through the maze, and I strain to find the source of the noise. I run in one direction; the reflections of Griffin grow distant and disappear. I turn back, trying to retrace my path, but the mirror maze seems to have shifted. I can't find my way. Another scream echoes through the maze. It is Rhaksha's. Her voice is choked with half -sobbing, half-screaming. I run, seeing her reflections scattered through the walls. She is bent in the throes of agony, and she screams again. Sweat soaks her hair and her face is twisted into a mask of pain and terror. The reflections change as I run, trying to find Griffin and Rhaksha. The are both crying out now. Another voice screams my name. _

_Bobby is calling out for me, desperately, hopelessly. His reflections are in the walls around me, but I can't see where they come from. His face is streaked with tears, and there is acid splashed over him. It has melted his clothes into his skin. His skin is livid red, raised in bubbling pustules. Wisps of smoke come from his skin and I turn, frantically. My head whips back and forth. The reflections change all the time. I can't find him, of Griffin, or Rhaksha. They're hurt. They need me. _

_I can't help them._

_I run, eyes shut. I hit a wall of glass with a dull thud as screams echo around me. I open my eyes, and I see more reflections. I run, yet I still see reflections. Fleur begs for mercy as her body twitches and spasms. She gasps for air, clawing at her throat. Her nails leave bloody furrows in her skin. I run from her screams, because I can't do anything more. I clap my hands over my ears, but still the screams get in. Their screaming is endless. The sound is driving me insane. I need to help them. I have to help them. I can't let them suffer like that, but there is nothing I can do. _

_The mirrors flash by again. Lying in a pool of blood is Kichiro. He's not making a sound. I turn, trying to find him. I can't think through the chorus of screams. My mind is being shredded to pieces. I run and run and run. The sound echoes and bounces and distorts, following me like a choir of ghostly spectres. This- is it real? Or is it just my imaginings? Am I dreaming? I can't see past the mirrors. Why can't I see through the glass? Where is my flock? Are they really- Why am I here? What have I done?_

_I am helpless.

* * *

_

**Kichiro**

_I am burning. I can't open my eyes. My head is pounding, and waves of nausea come and go every few seconds. I feel like I'm going to be sick. Someone is stabbing me in the back with a red-hot knife, or so it feels. Claws are raking up and down my back, across my arms. My throat is burning, and it feels like red-hot irons are being pressed against my skin. I can hear flames, crackling into life around me, before the whine of blood in my ears drowns it out. I can hear the crashing of waves against the rocks, thunder around me, and the groan of the earth as it is torn from within._

_The world is only white-hot, blinding pain for a few seconds. Someone is screaming in my ears. I try to clutch my head, but my hands can't move. They are immobile, useless and bound tightly with some sort of woven tape. The screaming fades into a whimper, which is when I realise that it is my own voice. Voices, other voices, drift down, and I can make them out through the noise._

"_The subject's body is rejecting the drug!"_

"_Wait! The drug needs more time. The cell graft should work- it's always worked!"_

"_But we've never done _two_ cell grafts on a subject! They should've completed it full the first time."  
"I told you, there were complications! They couldn't, not without destroying the subject entirely!"_

"_What do you mean, complications?"_

"_The subject was clinically dead! We had to revive it, twice!"_

_That is all I hear, before the burning and the roaring in my ears takes me again. I am on fire. Every nerve ending is a white-hot star of pain. The roaring refuses to cease, and I can't even hear myself think. The blackness behind my eyelids is complete; dim and blurry colours swirl together. The sky is grey, not with cloud, but with ash. Ash floats down like grey snow, muffling everything. The ground looks blackened and burnt; streams of molten rock ooze down the slope. Everything is silence. For the first time, pain is not the focus of my attention. There are irregular lumps on the ground, slowly being shrouded in grey by the rain of ash._

_I call out. I call the names of my flock, my family. My voice seems too loud in the silence. I walk forward, but I nearly trip before catching myself at the last moment. Bobby's corpse rolls over, wide eyes and open-mouthed, face fixed in a scream. Blood spatters the ground around him, and I can see that a gaping hole has been torn through his abdomen. His hands fall away from the wound, stained with crimson._

_I drop to all fours, eyes prickling uncomfortably. With one shaking hand, I close Bobby's eyes, and rest his hands over his wound again. Clumsily, I scoop ash over him in an impromptu burial. I close my eyes, and pray as best I can for him. I move on, still on all fours. I find Mist and Rhaksha next. Rhaksha's back is a blackened, blistered mess, and she is curled around Mist. She died protecting the younger girl. Mist's shirt is soaked with blood from deep parallel gouges in her back. Her wings are cut to ribbons. She died of blood loss. It feels like a gaping hole has been torn through my body. Tears, hot and stinging, leak from my eyes. I close their eyes._

_I find Griffin and Fleur together. Griffin's arm is thrown over Fleur's shoulders, and their hands are tightly clasped. Fleur had taken a cut to the side, deep and long. Griffin had been stabbed in the neck. They lay facing each other, foreheads and noses touching. If I don't look at their wounds, they could be asleep. I swipe half-heartedly at my eyes. _

_It is only then that I can hear anything. There is the sound of faint, but laboured breathing. I count the figures off in my head. I have seen all, but one._

"_Eila," I say. I comes out as a rasping whisper. I swallow painfully as a low moan arises from the grey ash. I find my way to her side. Her body is covered in ash, but I can see the blades sticking out from her back. Her eyes, her liquid, lovely brown eyes, are glassy with pain. Her beautiful face is covered with soot, grime and blood. Somehow, her hand finds mine. I blink through the tears hazing my vision._

"_Eila," I say, again. My voice is cracking. "Eila, Eila, it's going to be okay, Eila."_

_The awful grating sound coming from her lips is supposed to be laughter. Fresh blood streaks her lips._

"_Don't go, Eila," I whisper feverishly. "I need you here, Eila. Don't die on me, don't die. Be okay, Eila."_

_She sighs. Her hand trembles as she reaches up to stroke my hair._

"_Kichiro," she whispers faintly. "I'm sorry, honey... I can't stay. Kichiro..."_

"_Eila?" I ask, cradling her body. The life is fading out of her. She can't die. I wish I could trade my life for hers now._

"_...Kichiro...it is far better...that you forget...about me... and smile... than remember me... and be sad..."_

_I can barely hear the last words. Eila smiles tiredly at me._

"_No," I whisper. " I can't forget."_

_She inhales. "Then...remember."_

_She is gone._

_I cry out as my heart tears to pieces. The pain of her loss is intense. Some part of my mind is not sure that this is real, but it feels so. It feels real. The world drops away and I can't see her anymore._

"_Eila! EILA!" I shout, but the thundering in my ears drowns it out. _

_Far above me, there is a frantic electronic beeping, speeding up until it becomes a continuous whine. There are human shouts. Pain tears through me like a thunderbolt._

_Then, I am aware of nothing more.

* * *

_

**Rhaksha**

_I sit cross-legged in the centre of the circular room. Screens plaster the walls, bombarding me with images of my flock. Eila runs, screaming, through a maze of mirrors. Her hands are clapped against her ears. Her shoudlers shake as she dashes blindly through the twisting corridors of glass. Griffin thrashes and whimpers in a tank full of yellow gel. Wires and tubes trail from his skin like stinging tentacles. Even though his eyes are closed, his face wears and expression of defeat. _

_Fleur cries out as she see Griffin on the screen. She tears at her restraints, blood dripping from her raw wrists and ankles. She is shivering, and her gown sticks to her body. Mist whirls and sobs in a perspex tube. A rubber cap is fitted over her head, and electrodes are wired into it. She is frantic, trapped in a dream. She can't escape. Bobby is strapped to a hospital bed, arms and legs moving as if he were running. His face is full of panic. Again, his eyes are closed. Gradually, he curls into a shuddering ball. _

_Kichiro is tied to a hospital bed. Whitecoats swarm around him as machines in the white room beep frantically. Someone is already doing CPR as they get a defibrillator. The machine whines, and the whitecoat uses the paddles. Kichiro's back arches off the bed before he falls back down. _

_The screens are shut off abruptly. I am left in depthless dark._

_Somehow, I am able to force myself to feel nothing at all.

* * *

_

**Whisper**

I clench my fists, watching as a whole wall illuminates with images of my flock. I can see the changes in them, even in the moving images. They look thinner, older, more worn and saddened. I see Griffin, defeated. Fleur, defiled. Eila, deranged. Kichiro, dying. Mist, degraded. Bobby, desperate.

Rhaksha.

Oh, Rhaksha. I long to hold you, to stroke your hair and tell you it's all right. You look like you feel nothing at all.

Anger blooms in my chest as I grit my teeth. Behind me, unnoticed, the bed begins to disappear in a fizz of deconstructing atoms.

I, Whisper.

_Destructive_.


	34. Chapter 33

Shiloh took her place on the dais, brushing non-existent lint off her storm-grey skirt and blazer. The blouse beneath was pale blue, high-collared with plain, almost severe, lines. The representatives in the hall beneath her dais shuffled and murmured among themselves; even wearing stilettos, she was slightly unconvincing as an adult. She adjusted the microphone so it sat close enough for her to speak easily, without stooping or craning her neck. That would be undignified. Her appearance depended on professionalism and the image of mercilessness. Shiloh smiled thinly as the scientists below arranged themselves and settled into stillness.

"Fellow scientists," she announced, "men and women of the future. Today, our number has amassed for a momentous occasion. Today, we will witness the passing over of the most celebrated creations in the history of genetic experimentation. They are the hallmark and pride of the Itexicon Corporation. Generation X!"

Polite applause met her announcement. An assistant, from the Japanese party of their number, let out a small whoop, but was immediately silenced with a hit upside the head.

The floor of the vast gallery shuddered and split in two. From the pit of blackness below, seven tubes of soft blue light stabbed into the darkness. The fingers of light were borne by a white floor-plate, and circles of metal projected them upwards. Floating in the shafts of calming light were seven figures. They were arranged in order of age and supposed importance by Shiloh's higher-ranking laboratory staff. The subjects were aware and awake, but they couldn't move. Their eyes flicked to and fro.

"Subject Gr1x0328. The subject is sixteen, is six feet and two inches tall. Its human DNA is taken from a Norwegian male and half-Russian, half-Finnish female. Its wings are white tipped with black, with DNA taken from the cape petrel, _Daption capense_, the base blend of peregrine falcon and golden eagle. The subject is rated to have strong night vision, almost limitless stamina and a strong leadership trait. Its skin, hair and eye colouration makes it ideal for operations involving northern European countries. Its temperament is described as easygoing. It is strongly devoted to its flock. The subject is known as 'Griffin' among its flock.

"Subject Fh289tWF. The subject is also sixteen, and is abnormally short for its generation of mutants. Its human DNA is taken from a half-Chinese, half-Indonesian female, and from a Japanese male. Its wings are pale to darker grey, taken from the harpy eagle, _Harpia harpyja_. The subject's build, notably with slimmer hips, may not make it ideal for mutant breeding programs. It is equipped with spectral blast, a power keyed to eliminate operatives with a specific high-frequency sonic blast. It is fiercely intelligent and highly stealthy, enabling it to undertake sensitive operations. Its appearance is also rated as useful in operations involving interpersonal communication. The subject communicates well and is a mother-figure in the flock. It is described as having a highly logical and calm temperament. This subject is referred to as 'Fleur'.

"Subject Er348xMY. The subject is one of the older members of the flock at age sixteen. It is considered to be tall for its age, standing at six feet. It is the tallest female in the flock, with DNA from a Nicaraguan male and female. Its wings are described as chocolate brown, with DNA from the peregrine hawk and from the tawny eagle. The subject was genetically programmed with future breeding programs in mind. Its abilities involve supernatural speed and reflexes. It is highly skilled in combat, and has greater strength than could be expected from a subject with its genetic composition. The subject is an important advisor in the flock. It takes a sister-figure role in the social hierarchy of the flock. It is called 'Eila'.

"Subject TrEXc002. The subject is age sixteen, standing at six feet three inches. It is the only lupine-avian hybrid in the flock. Its human DNA is derived from a Japanese male and a Korean female. Its lupine DNA is a combination of timber wolf, Mongolian wolf and tundra wolf. Its avian DNA is taken from the black hawk-eagle, the crow and the raven. The subject is able to partially transform into a wolf, exhibiting claws and sharper canines. The subject is programmed to have the ability to see beyond the boundaries of space. It will be able to remotely view occurrences all over the globe, regardless of its orientation. The subject is one of the five clones of the lupine-avian called 'Tred'. It was one of six copies, which it referred to as its 'brothers'. They were called 'Naoki', 'Riku', 'Kiyoshi', 'Tsubasa' and 'Ren'. The subject's genetic composition may be volatile.

"Subject Rh279gHI. The subject is fifteen, and is considered the most aesthetically pleasing of the female mutants. It stands at five feet eight inches, with its human DNA from a Spanish male and female. Its avian DNA was obtained from the peregrine falcon and macaw, while its serpentes DNA was obtained from the _hyrdophis belcheri_ and the _notechis scutatus_. Most notably, the subject is able to manipulate fire and air for short periods of time, making it useful for destructive enterprises. Its coldness and insensitivity to emotions makes it an ideal subject for assassination and termination applications. It is identified as 'Rhaksha' by its flock.

"Subject Mk157dBU. The subject is fourteen and stands at five feet and seven inches. It is a vulpine-avian hybrid, with DNA from the dove and the peregrine falcon. Its vulpine DNA is from the _vulpes lagopus_, the Arctic fox. Its human DNA was obtained from a Hungarian male and a German female. The subject-"

Shiloh was cut off. The double doors at the end of the chamber exploded inwards, blown off their hinges by a fireball the size of a large car. A fierce animal roar of many voices echoed around the chamber.

Mutants flooded into the room, leaping onto the stands and tearing at the whitecoats waiting to bid. A green and violetlizard the size of a station wagon crashed through the doors, bearing an assortment of mutants. A bat-girl with reddish fur around her neck and ankles launched herself off the lizard's back, latching onto to Figures broke off and rose into the air. Leading them was a too-familiar face.

Whisper rose to face her.

That was when all hell broke loose.

* * *

Whisper clenched is fists and closed his eyes. He felt the vibrations beneath his feet, the frequencies of all the matter around him. The white _everything_ was washed with redness, like a slick of blood had slid over his vision. His shoulders shook, and every muscle in his body thrummed with tension. Silence, heavy and oppressive, weighed around him like a blanket of humid smog. Heat bloomed in the pit of his stomach. A high-pitched whine echoed in his ears, like many vocies crying out in pain and fear.

The bed behind him dissolved into nothingness. The chair went next, vibrating violently as its atoms shook and tried to retain their bonds. The air around him rippled and cracked, rumbling like thunder and broken glass hitting the floor. A very faint sound edged in to cover the whine in his ears. It was like the gentle slap of raindrops on concrete. The sound of water and life. The sound grew louder, like a downpour, like a monsoon- a storm. The storm roaring in his ears cried out with the voice of the furious crash of waves beating against slate cliffs.

The dresser exploded as the wall gave way like a sheet of paper. Whisper pounced on the startled Eraser outside, kicking out with both feet as the other Eraser disappeared like smoke blown out of the air. With a snarl, Whisper launched himself at the Erasers pouring into the corridor. An aura of crackling energy fanned around him, and his hands stretched forward. He slammed one of the bigger mutants into the wall as others fell, scrabbling at their throats. His fist slammed into one of the wolf-mutants; it burst into flame, falling onto its companions and filling the white space with smoke and the stench of burnt flesh. Whisper crashed through a wall as the molecules of plaster shredded and clung to him like dissipating smoke. He didn't know what he was doing- Instinct was guiding him, and it was doing a damn good job. He smashed through a wall and landed in a huge, tiled room with fluorescent strip lights. Cages were piled on top of each other as far as the genetically enhanced eye could see, and mutants defying description occupied each cage. They stared, silent for a moment.

Then a hunched, child-like shape with a wolf's powerful head and shoulders picked up the howl. The monkey-chameleon-moth cross howled and shrieked as its transparent wings buzzed angrily. A turquoise-skinned girl rammed against the bars of her cage as the rest of the trapped mutants cried out in one furious, animal voice. Whisper snapped out his wings, shaking with ice-cold fury. A dull thud was building in his head, throbbing with the heat of a thousand desires, a thousand wants, a thousand needs. It grew louder, louder, louder. Louder, louder, like the beat of a drum, inexorable and unquenchable.

_Out, out, out, out. Out, out, OUT, OUT! OUT, OUT, OUT, OUT!_

The locks on the cages sizzled and popped off, atoms dissipating as the shrinking lumps of metal some white-hot. The mutants leapt out of their cages as Erasers flooded the room. It all hit the fan, then. A huge, lizard-like mutant plowed through the relief force like an oil tanker through a pack of cyclists. He picked up a wolf-man in his jaws; the mutant was guzzled and presently digested in a crunch of bones shattering. A cheetah-hybrid clawed at the face of one of the wolf-men, and a boy with limp green hair and jagged bone blades errupting from his forearms slashed it across its back. Whisper threw himself into the fight as hordes of other experiments vented their fury. Whisper threw an Eraser over his shoulder, where an eagle-lion-humanoid cross tore through its softer tissues with vicious talons. Whisper swept the feet out from under another; an octopus hybrid wrapped its blue-ringed tentacles around the Eraser's throat. It was hard to see past the crush of battling mutants and flying blows. Whisper kicked out hard, with both feet. His back slammed into an Eraser and they went down, the eraser face first. Whisper jumped to hsif eet and snapped the Eraser's neck with his foot. The Erasers suddenly seemed to change their minds as mutants blocked off the exits and secured them with uncannily in-unison efficiency. A bat-human mutant boosted Whisper up onto a cage. The roomful of genetic hybrids looked up at him in silent expectation. Even the de-morphing Erasers were quiet and still, perfect faces looking younger and more vulnerable than any generation of Erasers that had ever existed.

"It's them," he said, "or us!"

His voice echoed in the silent room. There was a shift of movement, a ripple of murmurs, he cut it off.

"Too long we have been caged, trapped, _imprisoned_ by Itex. We have been used, abused and subjected to countless days, weeks, months and years of torture, all in the name of science."

There was a pregnant pause. The air hung heavy with words unsaid.

"It's time," he said, voice hushed. "It's time! They want science, we give them science. They want proof of how successful we are? Then we give them proof! We give them proof that we are our own people! We are powerful, we are real, we live and love and feel! It's time to show them that we aren't just variables in some equation. We are united, and we are people too. _WE WANT OUT!_"

The low, dull sound came back in strength and numbers. Innumerable feet pounded against the floor, hands slapped against each other as claws and scales and pincers shrieked against the metal of the cages. Multitudinous mouths shaped the word again and again and again. Those that couldn't cried out in howls. The Erasers lifted their heads and cried out with one voice. The banging and the rattling of metal against metal; the keening wail and sharp retort of _yik-yik-yik_ against the soaring crescendo of the wolves' howl.

"_OUT, OUT, OUT, OUT! OUT, OUT, OUT, OUT, OUT!_"

Whisper yelled wordlessly, and one white wall fragmented and vanished. The tide of bodies surged forward, a living beast of flailing arms and legs, with wrathful snarls and fiery eyes. Whisper ran forward, feet pounding against the white floor as the mutants around him turned into blurs of colour. They could feel it. The air was heavy with the smell, the sound, the taste of freedom.

Nothing could stop them now.


	35. Chapter 34

It went up in flames. Cheetah-hybrids, riding on the giant lizard, launched themselves at the scientists screaming in the galleries. A certain mutant, with mottled gold-brown hair and slanted, catlike eyes leapt on a hysterical red haired woman, spitting curses.

"You killed my brother! You killed him!" she screamed. Beside her, a girl with lank, damp aquamarine hair and gleaming scales pummelled a Japanese scientists. A boy with bat's wings and tiger stripes growled, flinging an assistant over the balcony rail. Mutants swarmed over the white floor. A lobster-minx cross dug its pincers into the floor, tearing up the round metal projection-plates up with a hideous screech.

A hideous, shaggy and almost inhuman buffalo-cephalopod hybrid curled its four different pairs of arms around the throats of four different scientists at once. A frog-cat-human dug its claws into the chest of one of the shrieking Itex technicians, green skin oozing reddish slime. Nearby, a porcupine cross drove his spikes in the body of a scientist again and again. A violet-eyed hummingbird-gecko-boy sated himself on the blood of one of the assistants, blood streaming down his chin. Shiloh shrieked, shrill and deafeningly loud through the microphone. A grey and white streak veered away from its collision course with her, diving and coming to an abrupt halt on the white floor-plate as the blue suspension fields flickered and died.

The seven flock members came to an ungraceful halt as they hit the floor. Eila groaned, rubbing her side. Griffin yelped and dodged the cloven hoof of a half-goat boy as it fought alongside an Eraser. Kichiro lay still and pale as Mist crawled over to check that Bobby was okay. Fleur embraced them both, staring at Whisper, eyes widened. Rhaksha had already picked herself up, and Griffin and Eila hauled Kichiro up. Her eyes fixed on the white-clad figure as it wiped blood from its split lip. It couldn't be. Her eyes were deceiving her; this was just another cruel ploy of Itex's or the School's.

A half-bull boy helped Griffin and Eila as they struggled with Kichiro's weight. He was still out of it, completely unconscious. Griffin turned and did a 360, and nearly choked on his own yell when he saw him. Mist screamed, half in shock and half in joy. They didn't move for a second. Then they all rushed at him at once, shouting over one another and trying to grab hold of him, not believing that he was real.

"_Whisper_!"

Rhaksha's incredulous murmur carried over the roar of the angered mutants and the shrieks of the falling whitecoats. Her green eyes filled glimmered, filling with tears as her lips trembled and her expressionless facade began to crack, little by little.

The towering, muscle-bound boy helping Griffin and Eila grunted, and began to clear a path through the raging mutant mass when the M-Geeks poured in. Their green eyes gleamed, and their metallic expressions did not changed. In a single monotone voice, they called out, surging forward.

The mutants in the room stopped dead.

"Resistance is futile. Surrender immediately."

There was incredulous silence. Then a voice cried out, the voice of a red-haired, fox-tailed fourteen-year-old.

"Would you just _shut the bloody hell up_!"

Then the mutants turned on the robots and began to summarily keel-haul them. The angered mutants chopped and smashed and dismantled, sectioning the robots' heads like metallic oranges. The red-haired fox boy dragged Mist forward, out of the blasted doors and Fleur, Griffin and Bobby struggled to keep up. Whisper, Rhaksha and the boy carrying Kichiro had already fought their way through as mutants watched their backs and held off the tide of robots. Somewhere, a siren began to sound, and the tide of mutants seemed to make a simultaneous decision. They disengaged from their battles and streamed out of the exits, like a many-armed monster. Blocking one exit was Tred, and his small yet grim cohort of loyal Erasers. The ones in the escaping monster pounced on their former comrades, howling like banshees. Tred lifted his a gun, sighting a mutant as it leapt toward him. Whisper shouted, and a belt of flame fell over the Head Eraser.

The stench of burnt fur and blood filled the chamber as battling mutants smashed robots against the walls. There was smoke, and fire. Then, there was smoke, fire and screaming electronics. Griffin screwed up his face in concentration as undestroyed computers leapt from their perches on half-smashed desks and podiums. Transmission cables and fibre-optics leapt free of their housings as half of the 'bots turned and started to contribute to the destruction of the enemy. Their green-laser eyes flickered as sparks raced across their metallic hides. Griffin gasped, blood dripping from his nose as he fought to keep control of the robots. The microphone shrieked and the big screens above roared with blurring colours. Cabling and electronic parts ripped free of the walls, wrapping around and over each other to form a metal monster. The monster tore great swathes out of the robot opposition. Griffin whimpered as blood trickled steadily over his chin. He gasped, and clutched his head as his control evaporated.

Mist roared and the ceiling was smashed through like a sheet of paper. Lightning struck again, and the building shook. Powdery dust fell from above, and the mutants focused on getting out of there. The flock, followed by the muscular boy and the red-haired fox boy, darted through the corridors, with Mist and the other fox-hybrid in the lead. They scented the air, searching for even the tiniest traces of the outside world. It would be easy to smell. The white halls were full of the stench of antiseptics and spilled blood. The clean smell of air would be a welcome relief.

They ran head-on into a crowd of robots trooping silently down the hall, metal arms swinging by their sides. Their laser eyes fixed on the flock, eerily wide and unmoving.  
"Bugger," the fox-boy muttered. The robots ran forward, arms pumping. Fleur leapt forward, leg outstretched. Her kick blew the head off the first of the robots. It landed four feet away, sparking and twitching. Eila swept low with her leg, kicking the robots' delicate ankles. They broke. Rhaksha landed a two-handed chop to the lower back of one of the M-Geeks. Its back broke, and the fox-boy leapt, hammering the robot's head with his fists. He leapt from the metal corpse and landed on the chest of another. It flailed backward, and took several others down with it.

Without warning, the robots flew together, as if attracted by an insurmountable magnetic force.

Nudge stood at the end of the corridor, hand outstretched. Her hair tumbled loose, and her face was smeared with coolant fluid and blood. Iggy came behind her dragging Max and leading Gazzy and Angel. Nudge closed her fist, and the robots crumpled inward; crushed metal parts skittered over the floor.

"Let's get out of here," Nudge said, sounding harder, colder and older than she had ever sounded before.

That started them into action. Bare feet pounded against the ground, as the flocks pushed their wings out through the gaps in the backs of their hospital gowns.

"We're close!" Mist shouted as the fox-boy dropped to all fours, sprinting forward. They rounded the corner, skidding against the linoleum as a set of double doors loomed ahead of them. They could see the light pouring under the door, pooling like white smoke.

Mist leapt, reaching for the door.

And then she hit the wall with a shriek. Shiloh, dishevelled and wild in her ripped blue suit, strode forward, hand outstretched and more than half-crazed. Energy crackled in a faint blue aura around her. She planted herself in front of the doors, looking determined. Rhaksha leapt at her; she ended up on the floor, groaning. Mist hauled her backwards as the red-haired boy slunk back to them.

"Shiloh," Whisper said softly. Her mouth pressed into a tight line.

"Shiloh," he repeated, "please."

Griffin stepped forward and lowered her outstretched arm as she looked at him in shock. Her momentary decisiveness seemed to have fled her.

"We're going now," he said firmly. Shiloh, bewildered, nodded dumbly as she sank to her knees, stockinged legs splayed out.

Griffin pushed open the door, and the bite of cold mountain air greeted them. Identical black helicopters were lined up outside. Griffin stared, and made up his mind.

"Everyone get in," he shouted, urging them into the helicopters. The muzzles of door guns protruded from the opened entry hatches. Griffin pushed Eila into one of helicopters' cockpits, and Fleur into the other.

"Don't worry. I'll control it from the back," he shouted as the helicopter blades began to turn, whipping into a frenzy.

"Mist! Rhaksha! Door guns!" he yelled, half-drowned out by the roaring down-draft. The girls scrambled to grab hold of the door guns as other mutants, lead by Beatrix Webber from Pennsylvania, poured out of the doors. The flightless mutants hopped into the helicopters, and others spread their wings before plunging off the precipice at the edge of the helipad. Robots tumbled through the doors, darting at the departing mutants.

Bobby shrieked and swivelled Mist's door gun at a robot just feet away. He flicked the safety off and pulled the trigger, riddling it with bullet holes. The helicopter rotors picked up and the vehicles rose off the helipad. Griffin jumped into the back of one of the helicopters as mutants turned the wrath of the door guns on the robots flooding the launch pad. The helicopters with the flocks and their rescuers veered off as one, angling away from the crumbling White Castle. Mist whooped as a bolt of electricity struck from the roiling clouds above. A tower collapsed, and through the windows they could see glimpses of flame.

The swarm of black helicopters disappeared around the surrounding mountain peaks as the flocks soared over snowy crags of grey stone. The air was cold and fresh in their faces as they stuck their heads out of the doors.

They were out again.

* * *

Whisper couldn't hold himself back any more. Since they'd gotten out, there hadn't been a moment in between flying as far away as they could. When they had been able to land, it had been a rough and unpleasant one. Griffin, pale and swaying, had collapsed of sheer exhaustion. He'd only been up for a few minutes, for water and roasted raccoon in the large sandstone cave they occupied. Then he'd curled up again and fallen asleep, head resting in Fleur's lap as she stroked his hair.

There had been the frantic checking over of Kichiro. Eila was nearly beside herself with worry, but really, all he needed was rest to recover from his cell graft; Iggy and Nudge had suggested Max's mother's place as Angel coaxed the fitful Max into sleep. The half-bull boy who had helped them, Orion, had searched for his own food, and the fox-boy, Blaze, had been getting acquainted with Mist. Iggy and Nudge had snuggled close together while Eila had thrown her arm protectively over Kichiro. Gazzy and Bobby sat together, and Angel soon joined them.

Rhaksha, well, she had stared over the flames, face unreadable. Her green eyes seemed shadowed, and whenever he tried to catch her gaze, she would look at him disbelievingly.

The fire had been banked and the rest of the flock crashed before he could speak to her. The moon was high in the air, a pock-marked bluish-white sphere hanging heavy in the sky. Whisper swallowed painfully. He opened his mouth and tried to speak, but his mouth was as dry as paper and no sound emerged. Whisper tried again.

"Rhaksha," he murmured, voice rough. She turned slowly, silver light spilling over her features. Her soft lips parted slightly. He cautiously approached, and she reached out. Her hands cupped his face, and her fingers traced the lines of his face. His fingers tangled in her hair. She was covered in grime, blood and dirt; there was no denying it. Her hair wasn't lustrous, but tangled and matted and sticky with _whatever_. He leaned forward as she seemed frozen still. Under the cover of coppery blood and the smell of metal, he could barely sense the warm, spicy, clean Rhaksha smell.

"You're... r-real. You're n-not d-dead," she stammered. Whisper nodded slowly, holding her eyes. They were beautiful at night, he realised. Wetness glimmered at the corners of her eyes, sliding down her face and cutting a path through the dirt on her cheeks. She ran her hands over his shoulders, tangling in his hair; her expression grew more and more frantic as tears tracked down her face more quickly. Her narrow shoulders shook.

"You're _real_," she whispered, and flung her arms around him. Whisper held her, arms encircling her frame as it quaked with shudders. He buried his face in her hair, repeating over and over and over.

"I'm here. I'm here."


	36. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

**Griffin**

Iggy touched my hand briefly with few pale fingers. His blue eyes raked over the surroundings, soaking up all the details. Roses bloomed in orderly garden beds, and the pale pink walls of the house were neat and pristine. A dark church with a needle-like spire stabbed into the sky behind the house. Lace trimmed curtains overed the windows; pink florals were printed on the thin cotton. Light poured through the leaves of the trees lining the street. A roof of lush greenery enclosed the suburban street, and cool air with the faintest bite of winter lingered beneath.

Nearby, a young woman guided a little girl on a tricycle. The little girl laughed, and the woman smiled warmly, ruffling her air. From behind, a young man with an excitable spaniel on a leash approached. The young woman's eyes lit up, and she kissed the man on the cheek as the girl shrieked and patted the dog. The dog licked her face, frisking about as the girl petted it, tricycle forgotten. I couldn't help but smile. Iggy smiled too, seeing the little scene. We understood. We both had our girls, far away. We were missing them, and with any hope, they were missing us too. The family gave us hope. The future, however unlikely, could be like it: full of innocence and happiness and goodness.

The door of the small house was white, and numbered with a gold metal 38. The plaque on the wall read Griffiths in shining gold letters. A simple gold knocker was fastened to the wood. Iggy shivered, and I patted down my windbreaker. We were both nervous. It was just us two, with the rest of the combined flocks in Arizona. Kichiro needed his rest (Eila wouldn't leave him), and Rhaksha and Whisper only seemed to want to be together. Fleur and Nudge were left in charge, Mist and Bobby and the others deserved the down time. He broke contact; he smiled at me as his eyes clouded over again. His expression changed abruptly as he turned to face the house again.

"There's no putting it off any more, is there?" he bitterly.

"I'm grinning," I said. Iggy decisively lifted his hand to the knocker. He rapped sharply on the door three times. From inside, there was the sound of hurried footsteps and low voices conversing. The door was opened by a strawberry-blonde woman with the eyes like mine and Iggy's. Her long fingers brushed down a white half-apron as she peered out. The woman had the same body shape as us, long and lanky and slender; her hair was threaded with grey, and lines fanned from around her eyes and mouth.

"Hi," we started, "Remember us?"

Her hand flew to her throat and she gasped, taking us in in our identical glory. She looked us up and down from head to toe, several times. We wore identical light blue windbreakers over white long-sleeved shirts. Our partings were done in the same way, and we wore near-identical scuffed sneakers. The woman stared at us, blue eyes wide with shock. Slowly, they filled with tears. She ushered us in and all but slammed the door shut.

There was a moment's silence, then we were engulfed in the woman's embrace. The woman sobbed against us as I relaxed into her embrace. Iggy stared at the ground over her shoulder, face set in a bitter mask.

"My sons, my babies," she sobbed. "My babies."

She finally peeled herself away from us. I smiled a little bit.

"Hi…Mom," I ventured. Iggy's mouth pressed into a tight line. I nudged him, and his expression became less 'grim' and more 'uncertain'. I briefly made contact with his fingers and smiled at him in silent thanks. He was doing it for me. He didn't want to be here, but he was my blood brother and he was sticking it out for me.

The woman- our biological mother- herded us into the living room. It was all floral sofas and wing chairs, with a fireplace and a marble mantel-piece covered in lace. A black and white portrait of the man and woman in early life sat on the mantelpiece, while a framed Polaroid was the one of the only other object on the mantelpiece. It showed the woman, sweaty hair matted against her face and holding two very red-faced babies. The final photograph was of two pale, blonde babies with their eyes wide open. The one on the left was strawberry blonde, just like the woman, with darker, sky-blue eyes. The other baby was paler than the other, with nearly white hair and ice-blue eyes.

I picked up the photograph and Iggy followed the sound of my footsteps. Our fingertips met, and his other hand traced the outline of the babies' faces. I closed my eyes and imagined or a second. I couldn't imagine this woman as a mother, but Fleur- oh, Fleur. I could see her already, holding the hands of a little blonde girl and a dark-haired boy. And a Labrador, a chocolate puppy, trotting by as I trailed along.

"It's us," he said quietly. He turned to the woman, "Why didn't you tell me? That I had a twin?"

She wiped her eyes. "When you came, then- I thought, I thought you'd be together, that you'd already know."

We stared at her. The man, our biological father, was nowhere to be seen. The woman wiped her red eyes, and her gold bangles tinkled together. She collapsed onto the cabbage-rose sofa. She beckoned for us to sit. We did.

"So," I said, "You're…my mother."

She nodded, smiling tearfully. Iggy lounged, leaning back on his elbows with his legs outstretched. He still looked apprehensive. There was tense silence. I had nothing to say. I just needed to know that this woman was my other. I had a mother, and I was more human than I was not.

"Why?" Iggy finally said. I could almost see the pieces of silence drifting to the floor, shattering into diamond dust.

"Why did you do what you did, two years ago?" he asked, leaning forward, brow creased. I had no part in this.

"I…" she quavered, "I, I don't know why. I just wanted you to stay. It didn't matter to me, if you were blind and different- you are my son. I could love you no matter what."

"Then who?" I asked. "Who did what they did?"

She gripped the fabric of her apron. Tears glimmered in her eyes again as she flushed. Her hands shook.

"He did," she stated simply, shame and anger bleeding into her tones.

"Who did?" Iggy asked, frowning.

"Your father," she said. Her tone changed, and her expression of bitterness morphed into one of tentative hope. "He's not here anymore. You can come home. Your secret will be- I'll never tell. Your rooms are still exactly the same, in case you ever came back-"

I held up a hand. The feverish light in her eyes faded, stopped dead by cold, hard reality.

"We can't," I said. "We have- responsibilities. And duties, and loyalties and families that we can't live without. Something big, something bigger than us, bigger than this, is going to happen. And, I have someone waiting for me. I have to return to her."

Her expression softened. She understood. "Oh. I see."

She smiled softly, and got up, opening a drawer in one of the tasteful bureaus. She drew a blue-wrapped packaged from the drawer, and turned, bringing it to us. Iggy touched my hand with a pinkie. Our mother sat at the sofa and unwrapped the soft blue bundle. Inside were two baby quilts, one sky blue and aquamarine. The other was ice-blue and silvery-white. She carefully unfolded the quilts, spreading them over the low table.

Within were two tiny feathers, one white and black, the other soft grey.

She smiled at us, and folded the quilts again.

"I see, now. I can't be your mother," she said. We nodded in understanding. She had come into our lives so late; we hadn't needed her for comfort or reassurance when were young and afraid of the dark. Our lives had been so tumultuous, so violent and dark and devoid of freedom. A mother didn't fit into the unending, eternal riddle that was our existence.

"Go," the woman said. "Go and have your happiness. If you ever need me, I'll still be here."

She handed us the folded bundle and lead us out of the living room and to the front door. She embraced us one last time. The quilts were tucked into my bag. She smiled at us, looking lighter and freer than she had when we had come. She knew we were fine, and that we could live and be ourselves and be happy. That was all she needed. She didn't need to be our mother, even though she had hoped. I guess she knew that we were never her sons in the first place; yet, we would always be. She wouldn't need the reminders of us anymore. We would never leave her, not completely. I yanked a loose feather free of my secondaries, and Iggy pulled off one of his loose feathers. We handed them to the woman, our mother, and stepped outside.

She smiled and closed the door.


	37. Thanks, More Thanks and Many Thanks

**And this, my dear readers, marks the end, for now.**

**I thank all my readers, and my diligent reviewers, from the depths of my soul and from the very bottom of my heart. Without your continuing interest and support, Second Flock would have hit a permanent hiatus by now. I'd like to thank all who reviewed and submitted characters, especially:**

**Weeping Angel of Fear, NightOwl754, Avenging Angels, Cadisha Ora Rhaksha Caden, Hedgehogs Rock My Socks Off, embleu44, I'm Not A Leprechaun, DayDreamer457, Bandgeek791, PsychoticBlaze, silent-ninja-twins, iNfInItErYmAn504, KittyRawr1, midnightfeather, My Name Is NOT Jessica, Malehkia, and xFang'sgirlkisrtx.**

**Thank you to everyone who has placed me on their favourites or alerts lists: you people gave me the hope and motivation to pull through to the finish. Very, very special thanks to Katie for her constant support and enthusiasm.**

**I thank you all again, and call upon you again.**

**The flock has escaped Itex again, and their new mission awaits them. To save the world, they must first save its saviour. And that will mean...**

**Have your say on the title. Lined up at the moment are:**

**Far: The Second Flock**

**The Second Flock: Millenia Child**

**The Second Flock: The End Of Forever**

**The Second Flock: The Price Of Freedom  
**

**PM me if you have any more suggestions; otherwise, feel free to vote on my profile. Thank you all, and happy reading!**

**Your devoted authoress,**

**Royal**


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